Blindsight [Paperback]

Rosmarie Waldrop (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2003

The latest book of prose poems by one of America's premier philosophical poets. For the title of her newest collection of prose poems, Rosmarie Waldrop adopts a term—"blindsight"— used by the neuroscientist Antonio R. Damasio to describe a condition in which a person actually sees more than he or she is consciously aware. "This is one reason," explains Waldrop, "for using collage: joining my fragments to other people's fragments in a dialogue, a net relation that might catch a bit more of the 'world.'"

The collection—the author's fourth with New Directions—is divided into four thematic sections. The first, "Hölderlin Hybrids," resonates against the German poet's twisted syntax, while using rhythmic punctuation in counterpoint to sense. "'As Were,'" says Waldrop, "began with looking at the secondary occupations of artists—for example, Mallarmé teaching English, Montaigne serving as mayor of Bordeaux—but this soon gave way to playing more generally with particular aspects of historical figures." The title section, "Blindsight," is most consistent in its use of collage, juxtaposing words and images to jolting, epiphanic effect. "Cornell Boxes," in contrast, has a formal unity, inspired by the constructions of Joseph Cornell, each prose poem "box" composed in a structure of fours: four paragraphs of four sentences each, with four footnotes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Waldrop is the author of more than 15 collections of poetry and 20 books of translations (including Edmond JabŠs's seminal The Book of Questions) and a professor at Brown University who has mentored an entire generation of poets. She takes her latest title from a neurological condition in which a person sees more than they are aware of-but adds an intersubjective twist. Addressing the various arcs of life and mortality, the book is intricately sectioned, with parts either dedicated to or containing epigraphs from peers and former students such as Charles Bernstein, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Cole Swenson, Jennifer Moxley, with individual poems within the sections dedicated to more of Waldrop's poet acquaintances, creating a complex layering of poetic connections and perceptions. "H"lderlin Hybrids" is a sort of tribute to the German master, while the second section of the book, "As Were," experimentally recreates lives of figures such as da Vinci, Goethe and Mallarm‚. Waldrop also draws from contemporaries to create collaged poems indelibly marked with her own philosophical, and often deeply beautiful, language, infused with doubt: "taking your hand, or someone's/ for fear that writing/ though waiting for it, would/ make me a shadow,/ or from fatigue, worthy/ of the dark."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

A distinctly American voice—quick-witted, conversational, and visually concrete...a poetry that pleases no less than it puzzles. -- VLS

Rosmarie Waldrop is one of America's finest formalists. ...Waldrop's poems enact what most poets only describe. -- Ben Lerner, NO: A Journal of the Arts, 26 June, 2005

Rosmarie Waldrop is true to her exploration....the new surprise around the bend of the next line propels us on. -- Thomas F. Dillingham, American Book Review, September/October 2004

The book has a density that most poetry today does not come near achieving. Go out and buy it. Now. -- Tony Fraser, Shearsman, Summer 2004

Waldrop's sparse, twisted, and wrenched language is a precise and original tool for rendering...intimate emotions, graphic images, and philosophical speculation. -- Michigan Quarterly Review, John Taylor, Spring 2005

Waldrop...create[s] collaged poems indelibly marked with her own philosophical, and often deeply beautiful, language. -- Publishers Weekly, 27 October 2003

Waldrop...demonstrates how vital a prose poem can be in the hands of someone who fully understands it. -- William Doreski, Harvard Review

[Waldrop's] verse swerves, varies, comes back to itself, and...delights in a very human quirkiness. -- Laura Wright, Poetry Project Newsletter, Feb/March 2004

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation; Uncorrected Proof edition (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811215598
• ISBN-13: 978-0811215596
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,432,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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