Poetry. "This incorrigible book of poems with its Rorschach tests and National Inquirer soap opera rifts puts readers through the lewd twists and tender struggles of pulling our heads out. Part prayer and part acrid white of pulverized meds, THE CONTORTIONS exposes our fearholes, our limited tenderest tongues, and our raw victual hearts. Wanting to touch to a terrible extent, Mauro's uncanny sound work and edgy wit will change your mind and dilate the rest of you"—Dana Teen Lomax. "Mauro's book of brain science encourages language to pop and pulse down the synaptic hallways of our culture. From Freudian free association to soap opera summaries, from pangrammic mnemonics to Rimbaud, these poems are not afraid to breach etiquette and 'dis-remember' the habits of words. Mauro transmits the fantastical double life of language—what it once was and what it now (happily) can be—with visual and sonic nerve"—Jena Osman. Review of The Contortions by Emily Carr in Jacket 40. http://www.jacketmagazine.com/40/r-mauro...
Author
Nicole Mauro has published poems and criticism in numerous journals, including How2, Jacket, and Western Humanities Review. She is the author of six chapbooks, one full-length collection, The Contortions (Dusie Books, 2009), and is the co-editor of an interdisciplinary book about sidewalks titled Intersection: Sidewalks and Public Space (with Marci Nelligan, ChainArts, 2008). Her second full-length poetry collection, Tax-Dollar Super-Sonnet Featuring Sarah Palin as Poet, is due out from Black Radish Books in 2011. Nicole lives in the San Francisco bay area with her husband Patrick, and daughters Nina and Faye. She teaches rhetoric and language at the University of San Francisco.
