Nancy Gaffield's Zyxt (Oystercatcher, 2015)

Here are some favourite passages:


                               the iterate wind renders you
down to tallow this far north you stop looking for light

end of "Blown-in"

                                           regardless of

where you are bats return in the early evening, & we are on the threshold of the [in]

visible world....

*

a solitary blackbird sings

& we are

undone

then

*

listen--what was it we saw that

summer the moon burned 

almost black--

did you

see 

can you

say

*

                                                     we hunt among flints
for a name that cannot be spoken a hot wind scatters the thirty-nine articles
so much space you can hear dust loosening the hinges

*

At
first in 
panic of
dislocation I
let myself drift in the lyric
moment 

from "Eastbridge Fibonacci"

                                                                                             what happened to you then

as afternoon evaporated into evening and the century folded in

from "Lost Negatives"

Darkness brayed within him

*

The randomness of it

        skylark and song

        somniis meis fis--

        you become because of my dreams

from "Abecedarian Hymn for St Alphege"

(a tour de force of a poem)

You can buy Zyxt directly from the publisher here.

Oystercatcher Pamphlets: Amy Cutler's Nostalgia Forest (2013) and Alan Baker's all this air and matter (2013)

I've read two fine pamphlets this week from Oystercatcher Press. Amy Cutler's Nostalgia Forest (2013) juxtaposes passages from Paul Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting with illustrations from dendrochronology manuals (i.e. tree reading) and hence can't really be excerpted. Cutler's intelligent and playful combinations of words and images render the pamphlet an unusually engaging and gratifying experience. You can purchase it directly from the publisher by following this link.

The second Oystercatcher pamphlet I read and enjoyed was Alan Baker's all this air and matter (2013), interweaving dailiness and an array of larger concerns about language and living. Some of my favourite passages follow below, and you buy the pamphlet from Oystercatcher here. 



and we, this morning,
as if the world were a place of healing,
and touch the ultimate cognition

*

should it be sign of something more
when the square of sunlight on the hall floor
takes shape again at dawn?

*

               doubt
           and certainty in abeyance

*

she will say that the sea
     rested on her shoulder
    and its surge was her heartbeat

*

woke to surfaces and the words
                      that make up the world

*

living, "the process of becoming alive"

meteorologically speaking
           occlusion and changeability

*

the pathways of sleep
   lead away from all that
              into the calm melancholy
      of morning:


  

Imagined Sons (Seren Books, 2014)

I'm delighted to announce that Seren Books, which did such an impressive job with my first collection, The Tethers, will be publishing my third book of poetry, Imagined Sons. This is my first strongly thematic work, exploring a birthmother's consciousness through two kinds of poems: Imagined Sons, prose poems where the birthmother encounters the son in different guises once he's come of age (baker, hotel clerk, surfer, black olive, etc.) and catechisms, where the same recurring question provokes different answers over time.

I first completed a draft of the manuscript in 2006 and produced a pamphlet manuscript from it for Oystercatcher Press in 2009, The Son, which was named the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice for that quarter. Poems in the book have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, The Iowa Review, Long Poem Magazine, New Walk, New Welsh Review, PN Review, The Republic of Letters and The Times Literary Supplement.

Reviews of The Son have been wonderfully heartening, with Peter Riley describing it as "quite startling--a serious work about loss through a terrific play of imaginative resource." David Morley wrote in Poetry Review: "Carrie Etter's sparkling, serious beating-out of prose poetry and catechism continues in a finely judged sequence, grieving and honouring and surprising on every page. 'It is time' (Etter quotes Celan) 'the stone made an effort to flower'. And so this fine book, its respect, sadness and subject." 

Over the next few days, I'll be giving the manuscript its probably hundredth read and searching for potential images for the book's cover. A great way to spend what's forecast as a rainy weekend!

 

 

 

"The Next Big Thing"

The indefatigable Sophie Mayer has tagged me in a blog game called "The Next Big Thing," where one uses a set list of questions to interview oneself about one's most recent or next book and tags others whose work s/he admires to do the same. Here I answer questions about my (presumably) forthcoming third collection, Imagined Sons; my pamphlet/chapbook The Son (Oystercatcher, 2009) provides a sample of it. Thanks for thinking of me, Sophie!

What is the working title of your book?

Imagined Sons

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It began with a prose poem I wrote in 1995, where I imagined meeting my son when he came of age. I wrote half a dozen such poems over the next ten years. 

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I think a different actor would need to play each new incarnation of the imagined son, to suggest the breadth of possibility. I'd love Christina Ricci to play me. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Imagined Sons explores a birthmother's consciousness through two kinds of poems: Imagined Sons, where the birthmother imagines meeting her son once he's come of age; and Birthmother's Catechisms, where the same question recurs over time with different answers. 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The first poem was written in 1995, but I didn't work on the series wholeheartedly until 2006 (at that point only six  "Imagined Sons" had been written). The first draft of the manuscript took the better part of a year, but I've been revising the manuscript steadily since then. 

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The desire to explain or share my experience as a birthmother in a more immersive, less confessional poetry. 

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I expect people who enjoy flash fiction would like the generally narrative drive of the prose poems.


The poets I'm tagging are two wonderfully imaginative, intelligent, and kind poets. Their interviews should be up within a week:
Jennifer Militello
Zoe Brigley

Another lovely review of The Son

To cover as many pamphlets as he can in a limited word count, David Morley reviews in Twitter-style in his largely appreciative review of pamphlets from Happenstance, Oystercatcher, Rack, Donut, Knives, Forks and Spoons, and Smith/Doorstop presses. Hence I think I can get away with quoting Morley's entire review of The Son (Oystercatcher, 2009) here without violating fair use: "Carrie Etter's sparkling, serious beating-out of prose poetry and catechism continues in a finely judged sequence, grieving and honouring and surprising on every page. 'It is time' (Etter quotes Celan) 'the stone made an effort to flower'. And so this fine book, its respect, sadness and subject." 

As The Son is the basis of my third collection, Imagined Sons, yet another positive review heartens me that much more. 

Sea Pie: a Shearsman Anthology of Oystercatcher Poetry

I'm absolutely delighted to be in this lovely, surprisingly slim volume edited by Peter Hughes, editor of Oystercatcher Press. Those looking to further their acquaintance with quality experimental poetry should look no further (it's largely British). The anthology contains selections from Oystercatcher pamphlets. Contributors include Kelvin Corcoran, Emily Critchley, Ian Davidson, Amy Evans, Giles Goodland, Catherine Hales, John Hall, Michael Haslam, John James, Rachel Lehrman, Sophie Mayer, Alasdair Paterson, Rufo Quintavalle, Peter Riley, Sophie Robinson, Lisa Samuels, Maurice Scully, Nathan Thompson, Carol Watts, John Welch and more. I can hardly wait to begin reading it!

You can purchase the anthology directly from Shearsman Books. 

Two Oystercatcher pamphlets: Birds by Allen Fisher and Twelve Moons by Peter Riley (both 2009)

On my travels, if I want a book that'll fit in my backpack-style handbag, I grab a pamphlet or two, and the last two such titles I took were Birds by Allen Fisher and The Twelve Moons by Peter Riley. While I'll include some excerpts below, as both pamphlets are composed of short lyric poems, many of the poems are most successful as a whole, so I have quoted only a portion of the pamphlets' best writing here.


From Allen Fisher's Birds:


until a swan opens his wings in my head

from "17"

look out on a culture too

late for recovery to

avoid narrative traps delineations

of low blow whistles to

demonstrate sonic coherence

or some parody of fairness

second half of "18"

ashen air

beneath scratches of bright sun

end of "23"

Peter Riley's The Twelve Moons consists of his versions of Chinese poet Li Ho, also known as Li He (700-816 AD):

for hundreds of miles bright wind in the vegetation

a warm mist blown down to earth

from "3rd Moon"

Cool at dusk and dawn, all the trees

a thousand mountains, green depths beyond clouds

faint perfume in the rain falling through greenery

*

old red flowers on the ground, glow in tree-shade.

beginning and end of "4th Moon"

The palace walls stretch into cold daylight

*

Bells! this wine has waited a thousand days

we drink against the cold, to the Emperor

from "11th Moon"

Buy these pamphlets directly from the publisher: here for Birds, here for The Twelve Moons.

Another superlative review of The Son

appears on Alan Baker's "Litterbug" blog, appropriately in time for National Adoption Week here in the UK.

John Welch's pamphlet, Untold Wealth (Oystercatcher, 2008)

As I can't make it to London tomorrow to hear John Welch read, I decided I'd catch up with my Oystercatcher collection and read his pamphlet tonight. Here are some choice passages:

a barrenness of waiting buds

*

The difficult it is

Here, the original place?

*

Londonistan this

Othered I's

Home earth

To die in the land

'laid to rest'

But turn away here

How shallow are

The roots of understanding

As if powdered with their names

Gutterals I strove to utter

Ripening like a bed of fruit

I don't defend the process

Ashes that float across

This soft-voiced alien narrative

Dying in history's echo

Here they are in the post office

As if queuing at the end of empire

*

Arrival, as if you are

worshipping thresholds

As if signing, the

dust with our names

*

Being all potential is

A gathering-point of forces

*

I mean

The man's impossible dignity

Cornered in exile

Is what fails to disappear

The weaver of uncorrupted cloth

*

swan family their

bliss of extended necks

*

As if self were a city and we are all other

Just to be like that in the air

Abrupt as a bird's life and it is enough.

from "home ground"

Here flights of capital pigeons

They're turning turning on a depthless sky

*

I who went out walking

As if I had scarcely begun

from "untold wealth"

The pamphlet is available direct from the publisher. His recent books are published by Shearsman.

Ian Seed reviews The Son

Ian Seed warmly reviews The Son along with two other Oystercatcher pamphlets in the latest Shadowtrain.

Imagined Sons (Seren, 2014)

If you go to Seren Books' website and join their free book club, you can purchase Imagined Sons for 20% off. Follow this link.

With readings (in chronological order): Seattle, WA; London; Plymouth; Bradford on Avon; Cheltenham; Bristol; Providence, RI; Claremont, NH; Cambridge, MA; Portsmouth; Cardiff; Oxford; Reading; Swansea; Ledbury; Nottingham; Norwich; Sheepwash; Exeter; Leicester; Chichester.

Advance praise for Imagined Sons: 

"In Imagined Sons Carrie Etter reflects on the experience of a birthmother who gave up her son when she was seventeen. In a series of haunting, psalm-like prose poems of enormous courage and insight, she describes possible encounters with this son now in his late teens, expressing how ‘sometimes the melancholy arrives before the remembering’. The series of ‘Birthmother’s Catechisms’ return to repeated, harrowing questions that yield different answers at different moments. This quite extraordinary book by a writer of great imagistic power and skill leaves a mark on the reader which is ineradicable. These are poems of the utmost importance."   --Bernard O'Donoghue

"Carrie Etter’s stellar new volume, Imagined Sons, folds the wrenching passion of displaced motherhood into a fascinating sequence of poems.  Etter writes with intelligence, imagination and style—and not a shred of sentiment.  Each poem packs a profound surprise as the birthmother’s vision of a son reappears in guises equally palpable and surreal.  Neither a memoir nor a narrative, the book opens lyric windows to interior experiences, and it rings with psychological truths.  This gifted poet defines poetry as she wrestles with ambiguity."   --Molly Peacock


Reviews of the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice, The Son (Oystercatcher, 2009), which provides the basis for Imagined Sons:

Peter Riley describes The Son as "quite startling--a serious work about loss through a terrific play of imaginative resource," while the selectors of the pamphlet choice remark, "There is something too, about how time moves, or how it doesn't, in a world akin to that nightmare in which you are running and running and your legs are jelly and you are getting nowhere. The fact that the poems in this collection are either prose poems, which can shuffle on the spot, rather than move along with a sense of narrative, or catechisms which go back and forth with different responses to the same question, adds to an overall feeling of being trapped. Indeed, these poems work by accretion, so the more you read, the more powerful that feeling becomes."

More positive reviews: 

"Carrie Etter's sparkling, serious beating-out of prose poetry and catechism continues in a finely judged sequence, grieving and honouring and surprising on every page. 'It is time' (Etter quotes Celan) 'the stone made an effort to flower'. And so this fine book, its respect, sadness and subject." --David Morley in Poetry Review

"The "Imagined Sons" poems are short dream-like stories, which hit exactly the right note, as suppressed emotion resurfaces in our dreams. There's a surrealist element to these stories, with a motif of a young man, familiar, but out-of-reach, the repetition of which builds up a powerful sense of longing.

The first and last poems - both in the catechism form - link the personal loss to the public loss of the 9/11 attacks. It's a risk, but it works, due in part to the understated nature of the poems; in fact, it succeeds in universalising an experience that might otherwise be intensely personal." --Alan Baker on his blog, Litterbug 

"What impresses me is how complex ideas have been made so enjoyable to read. The narratives are fluent, intriguing, somewhat surreal, and often humorous. They seem simple, yet strange, and are deeply affecting. They mine the deep pit of memory and expectation, and are haunted by what they don’t know, what isn’t said, what remains lost or unfathomable." --Rob A. MacKenzie, Sphinx 19 

"This is a moving collection of texts: some are prosy and some are lyrical. It is not like anything else I have ever read: 

.......How did you let him go?

.......Who hangs a birdhouse from a sapling?

How that hurts!" --Helena Nelson, Sphinx 19

The Son evokes a birthmother's consciousness through two kinds of poems: Imagined Sons, prose poems which envision the now-grown son and birthmother in a moment of contact; and Birthmother's Catechisms, in which the same question--e.g., What day is today?, How did you let him go?--recurs with changing answers. Moreover, after Al Qaeda's attacks on the US in 2001, the anniversary of the son's birth becomes complicated by the fact that both occur on September 11th.

Poems in the pamphlet first appeared in Barrow Street, PN Review, The Republic of Letters, and The Times Literary Supplement, among other journals.

Online Notices

Thanks to George Ttoouli for his kind remarks on the launch of The Son in Bath last week.

And somehow only now have I come across an article published in El Mercurio (according to Tony Frazer it's Chile's equivalent of The Times) on New Year's Eve in 2004. Tony Frazer translates the passage in which my name is mentioned thus: "As for poetry, the global scene is vast, dynamic, diversified and in some cases brilliant (the recently deceased Anthony Hecht, Monica Ferrel, John Ashbery, Charles Simic, John Mole, Carrie Etter, Brad Leithauser are mere sample [names] (or: illustrative examples) in the thriving English language poetry of today. In other words, if we left our parochial surroundings, we would be able to see a literary landscape [that is] stimulating, energetic, provocative, tempting, very diverse and a contrast with the backward republic of native letters."

How I got on that list--how I'm known to Camilo Marks--I don't know, but to be among those poets and to have my work described as "brilliant" thrills me.

The Son Selected as Pamphlet Choice by The Poetry Book Society

! ! !

Oystercatcher profile in Poetry News

If you have a subscription to The Poetry Society's Poetry News, in the new issue (Autumn 2009) there's a splendid profile of Oystercatcher Press on the back page. I especially appreciate seeing in print editor Peter Hughes' comment, "I think the best poetry surprises by breaching boundaries, rupturing categories and genres. Cliques and false oppositions do a lot of damage in English poetry. They stop people reading widely and making the unexpected discoveries and connections upon which poetry thrives." Hear, hear!

The Son now out from Oystercatcher Press

I guess this means it's real! I can't wait to hold a copy.

The Son forthcoming in September 2009

Much to my surprise, Oystercatcher Press is releasing The Son very quickly, in September 2009. Further details, including a description of the work and purchasing information, can be found under Pamphlets, listed in the top right column under Permanent Pages.

The Son, a new, forthcoming pamphlet

I am delighted to say that Oystercatcher Press is going to publish my pamphlet, The Son. If you've heard of Oystercatcher but can't place it, it's probably because they just won the Michael Marks Award for a poetry pamphlet publisher (Americans, for pamphlet read chapbook). 

I hadn't planned on publishing another pamphlet in the UK at the moment (I had a chapbook ms under consideration at a US press and pulled it once this came through--it'll have to wait for another day), but Peter Hughes, editor and publisher of Oystercatcher, asked me to "come aboard," as it were, and I was flattered and honored to accept. 

The Son draws on a book manuscript in progress, Imagined Sons; large selections of its prose poems first appeared in PN Review in 2007 and The Republic of Letters earlier this year. "Birthmother's Catechisms," which also appear in the manuscript and pamphlet, have appeared in New Welsh Review, Stand, and The Times Literary Supplement.

As soon as I have the prospective publication date, I'll happily update this post accordingly.

Pamphlets

Homecoming

Dancing Girl Press, September 2013
$7 US plus P&P / £5 direct

Homecoming picks up on a sense of isolation in the American Midwest as well as its emphasis on the more positive attributes of family life. Thus when the father falls to injury and illness, his decline upsets the meanings of family, selfhood and home. Poems in Homecoming first appeared in Court Green, New Welsh Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, The Times Literary Supplement and The Warwick Review.

Positive reviews have appeared in Sabotage Reviews, Elsewhere and Luna Luna.

* * * 

Divinations

Punch Press, June 2010

$10 US / $15 elsewhere (SOLD OUT)

Twenty poems from the series Divining for Starters, originally published in Alterran Poetry Assemblage, Cannot Exist, Damn the Caesars, Gists & Piths, Great Works, The Liberal, Painted, spoken, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Wales, Shearsman, and Tenth Muse.

* * *

The Son

Oystercatcher Press, September 2009

ISBN 9781905885244

£4 including UK p&p

Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice

Peter Riley describes The Son as "quite startling--a serious work about loss through a terrific play of imaginative resource," while the selectors of the pamphlet choice remark, "There is something too, about how time moves, or how it doesn't, in a world akin to that nightmare in which you are running and running and your legs are jelly and you are getting nowhere. The fact that the poems in this collection are either prose poems, which can shuffle on the spot, rather than move along with a sense of narrative, or catechisms which go back and forth with different responses to the same question, adds to an overall feeling of being trapped. Indeed, these poems work by accretion, so the more you read, the more powerful that feeling becomes."

Other reviews include Alan Baker on his blog, Litterbug; three at Sphinx, by Rob A. MacKenzie, Marcia Menter, and Helena Nelson; and Rupert Loydell in Shadowtrain.

The Son evokes a birthmother's consciousness through two kinds of poems: Imagined Sons, prose poems which envision the now-grown son and birthmother in a moment of contact; and Birthmother's Catechisms, in which the same question--e.g., What day is today?, How did you let him go?--recurs with changing answers. Moreover, after Al Qaeda's attacks on the US in 2001, the anniversary of the son's birth becomes complicated by the fact that both occur on September 11th.

Many of the pamphlet's poems have already been published in Barrow Street, PN Review, The Republic of Letters, and The Times Literary Supplement.

The Son comes from a book-length manuscript, Imagined Sons, presumably forthcoming. It was launched at Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath on 26 October 2009, along with Janet Sutherland's second collection, Hangman's Acre (Shearsman).

* * *

Yet
Leafe Press, February 2008
ISBN 9780953540198
£3.50 (UK) / $8.00 (US) (SOLD OUT)

"Technically Etter often makes use of the arresting juxtapositions of new sentence writing (in both prose and lineated forms) but counterpoints these with threaded-through continuities that generate more settled overall arguments. This is used to great effect in 'Paternal', which hints at family illness, even death, but in a way which keeps pathos firmly at bay [...]. Elsewhere this technique simply allows more space into the poem, and for the mind to savour the relationships between images as much as the images themselves [...]. Yet is an excellent introduction to Etter's work for British readers and promises much for her new books due this year and next."

--Scott Thurston, Stride

"The eighteen or so poems here vary in structure, intent and layout—sometimes it seems perversely so, but Etter is a poet who knows exactly what she is doing. This isn’t in any sense an easy collection and I mean that as an endorsement. I was intrigued, impressed and ultimately bowled over by its hard-won lyricism."

--Eleanor Livingstone, Sphinx

* * *

Subterfuge for the Unrequitable
Potes & Poets, 1998
ISBN 9780937013793
$6.00 (SOLD OUT)

To “register the tongue’s torque,” Carrie Etter’s poems show great skill and a willingness to take risks, both rare things in a “first book.” This writing is simultaneously “out there” and always also immediately present (in the most literal sense of “with it”), an experience that is by turns centering and dizzying. It’s quite a ride.

Ron Silliman

Attention and compassion direct this finely chiseled work. Etter’s quick eye focuses on precise moments of change and of emergence—those crucial moments where life gets really interesting—and sculpts them into wholes with an unusually attuned ear, an ear that catches always a subtle music and often a marvelous oddity—what an agile vocabulary! These are poems that wake you up when you thought you were already awake.

Cole Swensen