Description
Book SynopsisThe third full-length collection by Julien Poirier, Out of Print is a truly bicoastal volume, reflecting the poet''s years in New York as well as his return to his Bay Area roots. Consider it a meetinghouse between late New York School and contemporary California surrealism, a series of quips intercepted from America''s underground poetry telegraph, or an absurdist mirror held up to consumerist culture.
"Welcome Julien Poirier! What a distinct inspired voice. His work is abundant in surprise. His musical,often bonkers play of language is, for me, a source of delight & revelation."—David Meltzer
"Julien Poirier’s poems calibrate the vernacular in a sublime mathematics of commonalities. The effect is that of feelings on the run, enunciated clearly. In a sudden down-draught—''You’re wind, you melt on my tongue''—he’ll take the contemporary love poem into new stretches of believability
Trade Review
Poirier's poems have an attentiveness and intimacy and wonder that address all of us who naturally expect a poet to speak to us, but are astonished to discover that he also hears us and gives us a voice. What better reason to read Poirier, as his poems need us as much as we need them."-Benjamin Hollander, Boston Review "In Poirier's universe, the world is a stale baguette with goldfish caviar and moldy matchtips. Call it what you want. He hangs out behind the Kum and Go with Bob Kaufman, Bernadette Mayer, Richard Brautigan, and Henri Michaux and eats it."--BOMB Magazine "Never bound to a single or elitist aesthetic, the poetry's there for any one of us to inhabit. ... Like [John] Wieners, Julien avoids the pitfalls of literary self-importance, keeping his focus on building poems that liberate the reader momentarily, while never presuming to have a set solution. The poem is a problem the poet and reader confront for the sake of beauty."--Guillermo Parra
Table of Contents
OPENING POEM 17 REASONS WHY AVERAGE PAST “Dear reader” BACK ON ROOSTER POEM (“I used to be the biggest leftist”) THE 2ND AMENDMENT NEVER SLEEPS (2 pages) PEPPER’S GHOST ENTROPY REX (3 pages) SHIMMERING LUCIFERS STAGE 4 LUNG CANCER WON’T WAIT SHOWDOWN WITH DEATH THE BABOON IS EATING STRAWBERRIES GREAT ESCAPES IN NEW YORK CITY (3 pages) INVESTIGATION WINNEMUCCA (2 pages) FOUR FAILED REVOLUTIONS (2 pages) “When I was growing up in America” ORCHESTRE DE PARIS LOUIS ARMSTRONG THE 1906 SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE (AN EPISODE) THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING (3 pages) DRUNKARD’S ALMANAC EXISTENTIALIST SPA GARDENS & AIRPLANES THE COMMODITY SINGS TO ITS BELOVED (2 pages) HEAVY LOSSES, BOSS (3 pages) EGYPTIAN BOWLING TROPHY SHADES OF THE GENIE GENRE TAMERLANE MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT SHUT EYE EXIT SIGNS BURN THERE’S LOVE AND THEN THERE’S LOVE (2 pages) ZERO WITH A THOUSAND ACES (2 pages) INDEPENDENTLY BLUE RABBITS AND CANARIES (2 pages) LONG LIVE (2 pages) CAPE CODE MOVE ON INNER OAF MY SKELETON PIERRE DE RONSARD THE PERFECT MAN THE RED CAPS MOUCHE VERTE MORTE GREEN BOTTLE FLY LOUIS ARMSTRONG INTERNATIONAL BERKELEY VOICE NOTES (3 pages) IF YOU’RE READING THIS REAL-LIFE ADVENTURE THIS IS THE LIFE SILVER TO SILVER
