Winner of the 2009 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM chapbook contest, Ben Mirov's I IS TO VORTICISM is an auspicious debut from a poet to watch. "A recurring character in the poetry of Ben Mirov is Ben Mirov, part charming host, part self-inflicted lab experiment in a debut dedicated to demonstrating our daily, perilous transformations. These poems are sudden, agile, heart-strong, and as wonderfully unsolvable as their analogical title. Welcome to the surgical theater. You're finally going to learn how to sleep with your eyes open." --Dobby Gibson "These poems and parables celebrate the idea of no self, even as they sing a host of eccentric alter-egos and delightfully strange secret-identities into being. Using 'interstellar ventriloquism,' Ben Mirov is able to inhabit several worlds at once. He deftly mixes the mythic with the mundane, the literary with the cartoonish, sincerity and simulacra. The result is an impressive, often hilarious, book that truly works on many levels." --Elaine Equi
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyone's Ben Mirov,
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This review is from: I is to Vorticism (Paperback)
The wrap-around cover of this chapbook is a Taylor Fox painting entitled "A Demonstration," in which a lone figure on a theatre stage--hidden from the audience's view by a large canvas--pedals a whirling contraption of set pieces that produce, we imagine, a series of changing scenes and silhouettes, a phantasmagoria wheeled by the tireless artist clothed in shadow on the back cover. I can't think of a more perfect visual metaphor for Ben Mirov's beautiful first collection of poems in print. At once restless and easy, these strange meditations, anecdotes & parabolic prose pieces enact the difficulties of change as they entertain, seemingly effortlessly. Mirov shares a kinship with poets like James Tate & Dean Young in this respect, American exemplars of the absurd; but these poems are not merely derivative. Instead, the poet invents & reinvents himself in surprising, charmingly humorous ways that never allow the character Ben Mirov--&, one gets the impression, the poet himself--to rest comfortably on a single notion of self. "No feeling is also a feeling," he writes in the collection's first poem, "a powerful one surrounded by all feelings." If one replaces the word "feeling" with "identity" (perhaps they amount to the same thing in Ben Mirov's poems) then the multiple collapsings that follow perfectly transmit the sense of inevitability that we should expect from great poetry. Here is a young new poet to be reckoned with.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fencing the Ghost,
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This review is from: I is to Vorticism (Paperback)
Reading I Is To Vorticism is like opening the door and finding a dozen seal pups limned in foxfire. "I'm Ben Mirov," they belch, before melting into snakes, then scarves, then little phosphorescent puddles. The puddles hiccup into crows, which burst into night. A girl appears with horsemint, currants, and a garibaldi in a mason jar. "Drink," she says. You do. Night crumbles down to crows, the crows collapse into puddles. In your right hand is an eyeball. In your left hand is a snowstorm. The eyeball is staring at you. "I'm Ben Mirov," it barks.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Book Worth Returning To,
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This review is from: I is to Vorticism (Paperback)
The book opens with an aptly chosen quote from Dobby Gibson: "If there are feelings, / then there must be a reality that causes them, / but in the space that exists between the two, our finest lies are born." Mirov's work lives within these parameters - he is a playful liar, teasing out that which exists between feeling and reality. The poems are very aware, looking both inward at the self and outward towards one's surroundings. It is an observant, mischievous, and sensitive work that manages to be both funny and intelligent. A truly pleasurable read that I intend to return to and most definitely recommend.
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