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For the past four years, the i.e reading series, curated and hosted by Michael Ball, has been bringing local and national writers to read in Baltimore. Now Narrow House, the local publishing house that prides itself in “creating interdisciplinary language-based craziness,” has published a reader of the avant-garde series.
“Narrow House (Justin Sirois, Jamie Gaughran-Perez, and I) appreciated the uniqueness of the ie series, as well as Michael’s curatorial expertise in attracting high-caliber contemporary poets to places like the LOF/T,” said Narrow House editor Lauren Bender. “We wanted to take the opportunity to anthologize the series in a crystallized, tangible way.”
It’s not a complete anthology, as Ball explains in his introduction, as it doesn’t represent all that the i.e reading series is, which includes group events and performances. Rather, the reader is an selection of pieces from seventy or so poets, including locals like Rupert Wondolowski, Megan McShea, and Les Wade.
Like the series itself, the pieces included in the reader are an eclectic mix. Take Bruce Andrews’s “Hay,” a list of words and sounds, which forces the reader to look at language as an entity in itself, divorced of deeper meaning or associations, though I suspect the piece is more powerful when performed. It’s so different from Elena Alexander’s “Beached,” the poem immediately preceding “Hay,” which is rich in metaphor and imagery (and a personal favorite). Other outstanding works include Graham Foust’s “Today the Barricades,” and Sandra Beasley’s “Cast of Thousands,” whose opener grabbed me: “When they make a movie of this war I am minute ninety-seven, soot tears applied with a Q-tip, the one whose roof collapses on her head before her pie is done.”
The reader is certainly a testament to the Baltimore/D.C poetry scene, which is producing work that is edgy and anti-formalist, witty, and even beautiful. It’s unclear whether the i.e reader will become an ongoing publication, though Bender says the Narrow House team is considering it.
”We like the idea of volumes of this anthology, since it really does preserve the series and keep Baltimore in its rightful place on the poetic circuit, but we haven’t committed to anything yet,” Bender says.
For now, Narrow House is hosting a reading and release party to celebrate the i.e reader’s publication on January 2nd at LOF/t.
Tags: and Les Wade, Graham Foust, i.e reading series, Jamie Gaughran-Perez, Justin Sirois, Lauren Bender, Megan McShea, Michael Ball, Narrow House, Rupert Wondolowski, Sandra Beasley, the LOF/t
Filed Under: Feature Sights
[...] White House dog gets testy when a bearded man in a festive red suit attends a holiday function. Radar Redux » i.e reader – radarredux.com 12/23/2009 Radar Redux.com is expanding the traditional concept of [...]
December 23, 2009 6:28 pmAnother excellent review can be found at:
December 23, 2009 8:45 pmhttp://wallacethinksagain.blogspot.com/2009/12/poetry-in-baltimore-and-ie-reader.html