The faces, frames, words, and concepts in this book speak to and of the author's obsessions, history, and lunacy, but they have a resonance from a complex and rich cultural past that enriches them. ... More > These visual poems are not Mayan at all, yet they could not have come into being without an experience of Maya culture. Human cultures are never exclusive or “pure”, but consist of dynamic mixings of many sources from many times and places. They are constantly in flux, and these pieces represent the incorporation of aspects of the ancient Maya world into the world we inhabit today. This is just one of the many ways in which the richness of the Maya universe is alive and well, and continuing to evolve.< Less
John M. Bennett’s The Gnat’s Window shows the evolution of a new form combining the textual, the oral, the visual, and even the artifactual, as the pieces can be seen as windows, or... More > televisions, or computer screens. The poems can be read left-to-right as traditional texts, or up-and-down, or in-and-out, or in any number of other configurations, and thus have participatory and even performative dimensions within what at first glance seems to be a closed form. They are “dreams’ doubled crust” indeed: shaped and emotional, conceptual and somatic, sparklingly clear, and enigmatic.< Less
John M. Bennett's LIBER X is a tour-de-force of poetry, mixing textual, visual, oral,typographic, and linguistic procedures to create a unique and inexhaustible work. A delight to the eye, the mind,... More > the ear, and to one's imagination. At 226 pages, the poems vary in size from filling the page, to minimalist "haiku"; from English to Spanish (and occasional other languages) to everything in between. Bennett's signature lyrical surrealism and intelligence, his intense textual visuality and musicality, and his wild metaphorical and imagistic power are all on full display in this major new work in his canon.< Less
Short text and mantra blocks by John M. Bennett, mostly in English, with some in Spanish and other languages. Each tightly coiled poem contains Bennett’s signature textual inventiveness and... More > compression, humor, bizarre and surrealist metaphor, and intense lyricism. These works could be described as “haiku” on steroids: “locksmith wobbled in/the afterbreath...)))dirt/whistle ,corncob and g/ravel...)))” or “los anos tantos años/alejados como una tos/tada en el traspa tio lo/que veo muje y el/sueño del conejo tengo”.< Less
Bennett is obviously at home with both Siglo de Oro literature and its linguistic excesses, as he is with contemporary avant garde literature with its multidirected experiments to both destroy... More > language and to re-create it. In short, this intricate and faithful-to-the-original (homophonically speaking) “translation” will surely find its place among the major experiments in contemporary poetry. -Ivan Argüelles
Bennett’s transduction of Sor Juana’s Primero Sueño was written, he has said, by “pretending I don’t know Spanish and writing it out (reading it) as if it were English.” This process arises from “an interest or attention paid to speech and hand writing as ‘texts’ full of meanings that have nothing to do with linguistics. I often read, or try to read, printed texts that way, too.” .... John Bennett’s project is as significant as any we will find in current poetical practice. - Jim Leftwich< Less
John M. Bennett, The Sticky Suit Whirs: Los Preolvidados.
From a deep whispering closet comes a “whirring like a/s tick y su it”, like an immense door of sound, preforgotten sound which... More > thus forms the protean shape of memory itself. These poems are language as water in flux through all its forms: rain, lake, fog, river, ice, steam, storm, sea, and a cup sloshing on the table or still as glass. At 67 pages, this short book has an intensity of expression and a swarming variety of voices unlike any other writing you can find. “...I/saw the crown of tree I/ni remumembered where/the flaucet was”; “...ticking in your/,throat the;;;;;ra/in )counted with a hammer”.< Less
De John M. Bennett, dice César Espinosa, “Hiperprolífico. Irremediable ‘hombre orquestra’; es decir, porque desde un principio destacó por su sapiencia y... More > dominio del oficio.” [Escáner Cultural, ago. 2009] Con este tomo Bennett añade a su creciente obra en español con poemas y poemas visuales escritos en Guatemala y México. Es una poesía pasional, surrealista, íntima, social, y experimentalista en grado mayor:
“el párvulo sindical y la lujuria que perdía
mi contexto linderal el lago el lago se
hunde en el sueño de la arena que era
mi despertar cuando despierto ¡o mono!
y sube el zopilote .liderazgo .plumífero”
“en este cuarto una snombra hay e
n este cuarto una silla de nagua hay
eneste cuarto una bliblioteca en
llamas hay un cnonejo ene ste
cuarto una botella de norinas hay”< Less
John M. Bennett and Davi Det Hompson played together in the mail from 1979 to 1983, and the record of that correspondence is reproduced here in full facsimile form. Their collaborations, mostly... More > involving words, poems, stories, and visual poetry are truly unique: full of humor, mystery, conceptualism, and sudden unexpected turns at every corner. This unique edition was co-edited by Peter Huttinger and John M. Bennett and consists of material both never before available, and material originally published in scattered zines, here gathered together for the very first time.< Less
Three differing approaches to some exciting and mind-bending wordplay and enrichment of meaning in language. The first section, The Sock Sack by John M. Bennett, consists of innovative... More > “haiku” using multiple meanings, “fake” language, graphic symbolism, syntactic reversals and other devices to create moments of intense and constantly shifting perception. The second consists of a selection of Richard Kostelanetz’ Unfinished Fictions which are minimalist texts suggesting numerous broader narrative possibilities. Each text is accompanied by a “Distillation” by Bennett, which is a discovery of sometimes mysterious, sometimes humorous subtexts hidden within the words of the originals. The last section, Kostelanetz’ More Inserts, explores the innards of words, to reveal the lexicon and concepts hidden in almost every word we use, showing how our language is multi-layered and more meaningful than we ordinarily imagine.< Less
Three differing approaches to some exciting and mind-bending wordplay and enrichment of meaning in language. The first section, The Sock Sack by John M. Bennett, consists of innovative... More > “haiku” using multiple meanings, “fake” language, graphic symbolism, syntactic reversals and other devices to create moments of intense and constantly shifting perception. The second consists of a selection of Richard Kostelanetz’ Unfinished Fictions which are minimalist texts suggesting numerous broader narrative possibilities. Each text is accompanied by a “Distillation” by Bennett, which is a discovery of sometimes mysterious, sometimes humorous subtexts hidden within the words of the originals. The last section, Kostelanetz’ More Inserts, explores the innards of words, to reveal the lexicon and concepts hidden in almost every word we use, showing how our language is multi-layered and more meaningful than we ordinarily imagine.< Less
