Hi there! I didn't see a 'contact me' option anywhere, just wanted to let you know I tremendously enjoyed your chapbook The Scavenger of London from Red Ceilings Press! I left a glowing recommendation on Goodreads in hopes to drive more readers to the glories it contains. I'll post it below, keep up the great work! J
Tom Watts raises the bar on post-apocalyptic poetry!
Being an ignoramus a quick Google search apprised me of the fact that a cento or ‘collage poem’, from the Latin word meaning ‘patchwork’, is a form where the author [I won’t attach any facetious parentheses as the idea strikes me as quite intriguing and potentially fruitful, and is certainly no more audacious or appropriative than the thinly veiled pastiche and cribbing folks like Tarantino spin into ill-gotten gold while citing their sources more poorly than Led Zeppelin] composes the body entirely out of words from someone else, carefully extracted and repurposed so as to create new and starkly different meanings. I seem to recall Burroughs participating in some experiments to this effect, it also conjures to mind the found objects museums exhibit some places, and the explosion of collaging which came about among the surrealists and were embraced by critics and the general public around when Picasso was establishing himself in Paris.
That all goes to say, this work is a startlingly contemporary iteration of a form with a longstanding and rich tradition (indeed, Homer and Virgil both employed it to great success, more recently Melville and Hugo in prose also appear to engage in similar approaches in places) which can accomplish much, and if you read Watts’ mission statement it expounds quite a novel and inspired idea which the poet/assembler does a masterful job of executing in riveting fashion, with great economy accomplishing what he sought to bleakly do with disturbing flair.
Taken together the chapbook makes for a chilling but strangely satisfying vision of a British empire on which the sun has finally set. We’re more acquainted with the plausible, nay inevitable America incarnations of Armageddon, but to gaze upon London so devastatingly imagined presents rife new opportunities for experiencing old world empires crumbling, and to locate haunting and beautiful tableaus to creep reverently through. Jolly good show.
Hi there! I didn't see a 'contact me' option anywhere, just wanted to let you know I tremendously enjoyed your chapbook The Scavenger of London from Red Ceilings Press! I left a glowing recommendation on Goodreads in hopes to drive more readers to the glories it contains. I'll post it below, keep up the great work! J
ReplyDeleteTom Watts raises the bar on post-apocalyptic poetry!
Being an ignoramus a quick Google search apprised me of the fact that a cento or ‘collage poem’, from the Latin word meaning ‘patchwork’, is a form where the author [I won’t attach any facetious parentheses as the idea strikes me as quite intriguing and potentially fruitful, and is certainly no more audacious or appropriative than the thinly veiled pastiche and cribbing folks like Tarantino spin into ill-gotten gold while citing their sources more poorly than Led Zeppelin] composes the body entirely out of words from someone else, carefully extracted and repurposed so as to create new and starkly different meanings. I seem to recall Burroughs participating in some experiments to this effect, it also conjures to mind the found objects museums exhibit some places, and the explosion of collaging which came about among the surrealists and were embraced by critics and the general public around when Picasso was establishing himself in Paris.
That all goes to say, this work is a startlingly contemporary iteration of a form with a longstanding and rich tradition (indeed, Homer and Virgil both employed it to great success, more recently Melville and Hugo in prose also appear to engage in similar approaches in places) which can accomplish much, and if you read Watts’ mission statement it expounds quite a novel and inspired idea which the poet/assembler does a masterful job of executing in riveting fashion, with great economy accomplishing what he sought to bleakly do with disturbing flair.
Taken together the chapbook makes for a chilling but strangely satisfying vision of a British empire on which the sun has finally set. We’re more acquainted with the plausible, nay inevitable America incarnations of Armageddon, but to gaze upon London so devastatingly imagined presents rife new opportunities for experiencing old world empires crumbling, and to locate haunting and beautiful tableaus to creep reverently through. Jolly good show.
Thank you so much, Jerome. This is so lovely to read. Much appreciated!
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