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SHADE FURNACE
by J.H. Prynne
OTHERHOOD IMMINENT PROFUSION
by J.H. Prynne
THE FEVER'S END
by J.H. Prynne
HER AIR FALLEN
by J.H. Prynne
SEAN BONNEY'S COMMONS
by duckplex
PARKLAND
by J.H. Prynne
CHIAROSCURO
by chetana
OUR PARTY
by Caitlín Doherty
REVENTAR
by Justin Katko
Eastward Ho:
The Saga of Vitus Bering
by Jennifer Dunbar Dorn
Concepts & Conception in Poetry
by J.H. Prynne
The Internal Leg & Cutlery Preview
by Various authors
Remote Carbon
by Ryan Dobran
Fine Lament
by Rachel Warriner
Some New Growth
at the Temple or Lobe
by Rosa van Hensbergen
Songs for One Occasion
by Justin Katko
Array One
by Ian Heames
Kaloki Poems
by Jefferson Toal
Invocation
by Jo L. Walton
St. Beaumont Conservative Club
by Mahmoud Elbarasi
Superior City Song
by M. Sword & T. Skullface
We Are Real: A History
by C. Hind & P. Mildew
KAZOO DREAMBOATS
or, On What There Is
by J.H. Prynne
INSTAR ZERO
by Mike Wallace-Hadrill
International Egg and Poultry Review (Friends Magazine 2)
by Various authors
City Break Weekend Songs
by Posie Rider
GLOSS TO CARRIERS
by Ian Heames
COMMITMENT
by Marianne Morris
THAT MERCILESS AND MERCENARY GANG... (Friends Magazine 1)
by Various authors
FINITE LOVE
by The Two Brothers
All Our Futile Grief
by Billy Simms & Keith Tuma
CONTRANIGHT ESCHA BLACK
by Josh Stanley
DING DING
by Ryan Dobran
THE PARIS HILTON
by Keith Tuma
Xena Warrior Princess: The 7 Curses
by Francis Crot
(& Nrou Mrobaak)
A Discourse on Vegetation & Motion
by Frances Kruk
Let Baby Fall
by Tom Raworth
INVISIBLY TIGHT INSTITUTIONAL OUTER FLANKS...
by Various authors
wild ascending lisp
by Sara Crangle
Plantarchy 4
by Various authors
the church - the school - the beer
by cris cheek
Poétique des codes sur le réseau informatique: une investigation critique
by Camille Paloque-Bergés
Plantarchy 2
by Various authors
BEAR$BAREBEAR$
by Coupons-Coupons
Register For More
by 405-12-3456
She's Not a Manager
by 405-12-3456
Plantarchy 1
by Various authors
Realizing the Utopian Longing of Experimental Poetry
by Justin Katko
Holiday in Tikrit
by Keith Tuma & Justin Katko
cris cheek’s work represents a concerted, and often bewilderingly multifarious, effort to think through the political implications of language as discourse and praxis, as opposed to language as a collection of tokens, as authoritative truth-telling, or as the exclusive property of Microsoft Corp. This is an anarcho-utopic struggle for the earthly commons, where authentic communication is guaranteed under the sign of noise as radical democracy; it is an arena of micropolitical gesture that opens interfaces onto otherwise undisclosed social practices; it is a form of research into all the joyous choreographies of the tongue as the supreme organ of capture and escape.
In the church – the school – the beer cheek makes one of his most impressive and serious efforts to provide a mise en scène of the act of writing as performance. So, as previous material is worked into subsequent improvisations, the text performs and translates itself, just as cheek engages in various forms of ‘automatic listening’ while walking through the centre of Norwich, thereby dramatizing the very act of writing as necessarily a moment of engagement in discourse, and therefore also necessarily a social and political activity.
Furthermore cheek critiques any vestigial notions of the authority of presence in performance and in speech. As in the ‘talk’ pieces of David Antin or Steve Benson, the poetics of transcription problematises both the sites of speech and writing. The subsequent notation of improvised speech in these texts cannot be understood as a complete, or total, representation of that performance. Instead, it opens up another form of mediation, or interface, between one aspect of the performative (talking) and the other (writing). Readers of these texts are treated to a supremely conceptual writing, but one that also promises moments of lush density as well as a strangely delicate lyrical iridescence. An absolute joy, and certainly one of cheek’s finest books to date.
For more on this work, see Piers Hugill's essay at Readings
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See also: Caroline Bergvall
on the church – the school – the beer