"In My New Job 'The women step out, the men go in' and the edifice C. Wagner's made seems an increasingly wider and wider kind of turning—colossal and somatic—through her own body and the bodies of others. Cathy's Job is a joyous multiple. It's a lift."—Eileen Myles
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Wagner's third collection is conversational and filled with the kind of self-consciousness that acknowledges and draws the reader in: I'm lying down with myself and kissing myself.... I thought, you all might enjoy that,/and the honester I get, the/creepier I'll be. Beginning with a section of Exercises, Wagner (Macular Hole) fixates on the body (the joint will stay in place like a pearl in Vaseline), and everyday pain: Ah good the left shoulder hurts again/because the right shoulder was, and is the wrong one. Branching into sexuality, there is fantasy and fixation, but also demystification (well I expect you to go into the/ fucking human tunnel/ I'm going) and mockery: penis regis, penis immediate, penis/ tremendous, penis offend us. Though she is an experimental writer and takes comfort in ambiguity (it abstracted me, which was salvation), these poems are not impenetrable. There is a fascination with the ordinary—the apt not mine & the carpet's not my fault/ I love that—that keeps the collection grounded and candid. Wagner is obsessed, in a good way, with the idea that things mean, and I can't tell them not to. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Wagner's third collection is conversational and filled with the kind of self-consciousness that acknowledges and draws the reader in: 'I'm lying down with myself and kissing myself.... I thought, you all might enjoy that,/and the honester I get, the/creepier I'll be.' Beginning with a section of 'Exercises,' Wagner fixates on the body ('the joint will stay in place like a pearl in Vaseline'), and everyday pain: 'Ah good the left shoulder hurts again/because the right shoulder was, and is the wrong one.' Branching into sexuality, there is fantasy and fixation, but also demystification ('well I expect you to go into the/ fucking human tunnel/ I'm going') and mockery: 'penis regis, penis immediate, penis/ tremendous, penis offend us.' Though she is an experimental writer and takes comfort in ambiguity ('it abstracted me, which was salvation'), these poems are not impenetrable. There is a fascination with the ordinary--'the apt not mine & the carpet's not my fault/ I love that'--that keeps the collection grounded and candid. Wagner is obsessed, in a good way, with the idea that 'things mean, and I can't tell them not to.'"--Publisher's Weekly
"Catherine Wagner's My New Job might be the last great book of the oughts. Part of its delight is that it is not constant. Its eyelid adjusts and flutters throughout. It's three books at least: fuzzy portraiture of energy and thought like early moderns: Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keefe- and even like Pound, in Wagner's familial way of tugging at language. It's also a bit Don Juan (as in Castaneda). It's a new age book: searching, awkward and useful too- a momentary sex manual for girls- then a dirty adult notebook. My New Job is physical, a shucking work. One picks up some spin on Sylvia Plath but what I truly felt was Frankenstein. My New Job is tinkering with life. I found myself imagining Wagner wondering what else Plath might have done- not instead of killing herself but what if she just wrote something different. Frankenstein kept Mary Shelley alive for a very long time while Ariel simply pointed to Plath's own demise. In My New Job 'The women step out, the men go in' and the edifice C. Wagner's made seems an increasingly wider and wider kind of turning- colossal and somatic- through her own body & the bodies of others. Cathy's Job is a joyous multiple. It's a lift."--Eileen Myles
"Catherine Wagner's My New Job might be the last great book of the oughts. Part of its delight is that it is not constant. Its eyelid adjusts and flutters throughout. It's three books at least: fuzzy portraiture of energy and thought like early moderns: Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keefe- and even like Pound, in Wagner's familial way of tugging at language. It's also a bit Don Juan (as in Castaneda). It's a new age book: searching, awkward and useful too- a momentary sex manual for girls- then a dirty adult notebook. My New Job is physical, a shucking work. One picks up some spin on Sylvia Plath but what I truly felt was Frankenstein. My New Job is tinkering with life. I found myself imagining Wagner wondering what else Plath might have done- not instead of killing herself but what if she just wrote something different. Frankenstein kept Mary Shelley alive for a very long time while Ariel simply pointed to Plath's own demise. In My New Job 'The women step out, the men go in' and the edifice C. Wagner's made seems an increasingly wider and wider kind of turning- colossal and somatic- through her own body & the bodies of others. Cathy's Job is a joyous multiple. It's a lift."--Eileen Myles
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