I received The Relational Elations of Orphaned Algebra (Marsh Hawk 2012) by the two mentioned in the post title. Every new book incites the excitement of exploration. I mean even the most clunkaroony book invites investigation, even if it only results in the comment clunkaroony. Eileen is safe from that term, I know. j/j hastain I do not know (prior this, I mean), but as I scanned merely scanned their collaboration, I got involved. That's a good thing.
I will formally review this book for Galatea Resurrects but I post here now because of the very real excitement I felt when I began to "take in" the book. That started when I pulled it from the envelope it was mailed in.
The cover photo, a photo collage, had the right kind of here it is, even tho I didn't/don't know where here is. Visceral reaction.
To boil it down ruthlessly, Eileen brings an interest in orphans and adoption, and j/j an interest in transgender issues. When I say interest, I mean a compelling force. Between them, they create an algebraic equation that embraces human inconsistency. I detect in my scan neither screed nor mere chiding, which maybe you were fearing as was I, given such topics.
My conviction stands that poetry doesn't last long in the frame of About. So those issues of orphans and transgender, serious and compelling, are only places where the poetry can happen. Poetry is the exertion of possible words within the magnitude of our confusion. In the rational world, neither orphans or transgender makes sense, but where is this rational world anyway? We're a confused animal.
So I write here to say that this looks like something interesting.
