{"product_id":"nervous-device-9780872865655","title":"Nervous Device","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eNervous Device\u003c\/em\u003e, Catherine Wagner takes inspiration from William Blake''s bounding line to explore the poem as a body at the intersection between poet and audience. Using this as a figure for sexual, political and economic interactions, Wagner''s poems shift between seductive lyricism and brash fragmentation as they negotiate the failure of human connection in the twilight of American empire. Intellectually informed, yet insistent on their objecthood, Wagner''s poems express a self-conscious skepticism even as they maintain an optimistically charged eroticism.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWagner''s fourth collection contains poems of memory and dark artifice. She writes with an obscure, magnetic lens. . . . Wagner contrasts these complicated poems with short, clean, pieces that offer a kind of breathing space for the reader. Not to be mistaken for trivial, the linguistic tightness of these poems are highlights of Wagner’s collection.\u003cem\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTaking with one \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Wagner’s fourth collection contains poems of memory and dark artifice. She writes with an obscure, magnetic lens. Wagner’s longer poems are willfully disorienting: 'A Well Is a Mine: A Good Belongs to Me' consists almost entirely of lines encased in quotation marks that confront slavery and invent equations: 'Freedom × Need = Reality.' Wagner contrasts these complicated poems with short, clean, pieces that offer a kind of breathing space for the reader. Not to be mistaken for trivial, the linguistic tightness of these poems are highlights of Wagner’s collection. 'Ta' describes a drowning television: 'o’er and o’er \/ let it stink way down \/ and coral grew there. \/ Covered it oar. \/ Let miserere deep. \/ Be mine for’air.' The poems delve into and self-consciously warp body, sex, and language. 'Unclang' explores writing poetry: 'it takes experience to write a real poem that is well-lit,' Wagner argues. Later in the same poem we are blindsided by the haunting statement that 'writing a poem is like reaching two prosthetic limbs out as far as you can on either side to grab something in front of you. You can’t grab it but maybe you’ll take flight.'\"\u003cem\u003e—Publisher's Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Taking with one hand what they give with the other, Wagner’s poems are full of vehemence and disdain and tenderness and somewhere, in some inexpugnable part of the body of language through which so many discomforting feelings pass, a thorny kind of joy. This is my idea of great poetry: in which 'The actual is \/ flickering a binary \/ between word and not-word.'\"—Barry Schwabsky, \u003cem\u003eHyperallergic\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In \u003cem\u003eNervous Device\u003c\/em\u003e Wagner has transcended the simply wrong to reach a kind of sublime wrong, so every wince is accompanied by a shiver of pleasure.\"—\u003cem\u003eLemon Hound\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Wagner is to be lauded, first and foremost, for her daring, her conceptual eclecticism, and her linguistic range. . . . \u003cem\u003eNervous Device\u003c\/em\u003e is a clear-eyed and brave testament to the changing currents of a poet's life.\"—\u003cem\u003eHuffington Post\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\" . . . the manner in which Wagner structures the language through repetitive dialogue both builds meaning and breaks it apart. . . . Wagner balances disjunction and lucidity, private and public, distant and (riskily) up-close.\"—\u003cem\u003eHTML Giant\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Drawing from her own experiences – examining sex and sexuality after her divorce, describing her experiences with pregnancy and motherhood, and giving small snapshots into her domestic life—Wagner’s work is highly personal, weaving together a quiet intensity with lyrical wordplay. . . . Like any true artist, she recognizes the need to explore what makes her uncomfortable. Her latest work, \u003cem\u003eNervous Device\u003c\/em\u003e, does just that, exploring the poet’s role as performer and the boundaries between poet and audience.\"\u003cem\u003e—Art Animal\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eNervous Device\u003c\/em\u003e, inspired by William Blake, is a compelling collection of poems that twists the abstract echoes of language into the full-body of a deep and hopeful vision.\"—\u003cem\u003eElectric Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Playful, spunky and revealing, Catherine Wagner blends her persona with her method of writing. The tone ranges from breezy to breathy and from pastoral to ironic. Externalities (such as oil spills) are internalized and that interface is lit up by the writer’s restless navigation.\"—Jeffrey Cyphers Wright\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eINFRARES\t3\u003cbr\u003ePRESSED GO\t5\u003cbr\u003eA WELL IS A MINE: A GOOD BELONGS TO ME\t6\u003cbr\u003eIF\t8\u003cbr\u003eRAIN COG\t9\u003cbr\u003eINNOCENT MONEY\t10\u003cbr\u003eA PATTERN\t11\u003cbr\u003eRECENT MALE INTERVENTION\t12\u003cbr\u003eCAPITULATION TO THE TOTAL POEM\t13\u003cbr\u003ePLEASURE TRIP\t14\u003cbr\u003eNEVER MIND\t18\u003cbr\u003eVERSUS\t19\u003cbr\u003eRAIN COG\t20\u003cbr\u003eRAIN COG\t21\u003cbr\u003eBLINK WHOLE HEAD IN IDENTIFICATORY TRANCE\t22\u003cbr\u003eTHE AUTONOMY OF ART HAS ITS ORIGINS IN THE CONCEALMENT OF LABOR\t24\u003cbr\u003eFLY DOME\t25\u003cbr\u003eA ROSE FOR GEORGE\t26\u003cbr\u003eMAKE A MACHINE FOR MASTERING SELF\t28\u003cbr\u003eHAPPILY\t29\u003cbr\u003eFLIES, POND\t30\u003cbr\u003eSPELL\t31\u003cbr\u003eANOTHER HUMAN MADE ME COME\t32\u003cbr\u003eI AM WAITING FOR LANGUAGE\t33\u003cbr\u003eREGARDING THE USE-VALUE AND EXCHANGE-VALUE OF ORGASMS, WITH A LIST OF ORGASM ANALOGUES\t34\u003cbr\u003eBENEFITS OF METAPHOR\t36\u003cbr\u003eAIR ENVELOPE\t37\u003cbr\u003eA LANDSCAPE\t38\u003cbr\u003eCHICKEN\t39\u003cbr\u003eTHE SUN-WENT-DOWN CALAMITY\t40\u003cbr\u003eROTTEN PLACE FOR CURRENCY TO GROW\t41\u003cbr\u003eI PRONOMIAL\t42\u003cbr\u003eDO FAIRLY PLEASANT THING\t43\u003cbr\u003eTHE UGLY NECK, OR MAKING BANK\t44\u003cbr\u003eINFRA RES: COLOR ESSAYS\t45\u003cbr\u003eThe light was out of my face\t46\u003cbr\u003eKinds of light:\t47\u003cbr\u003eI made clean lines ferment\t48\u003cbr\u003eRed    flies toward eye\t49\u003cbr\u003eWhence this yellow page?\t50\u003cbr\u003eAnd we return to the question of the integration of color.\t51\u003cbr\u003eColor, says Albers,\t52\u003cbr\u003eThe sun-red hair\t53\u003cbr\u003eTHE BOUNDING LINE\t54\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"City Lights Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48884895088983,"sku":"9780872865655","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/nervous-device-9780872865655","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}