Two Haloed Mourners

By Bernadette Mayer

1998

First Published

4.00

Average Rating

Number of Pages

1H16M

Audio Length

As its title suggests, Two Haloed Mourners is a work marked by a sometimes amorphous, sometimes definite sense of spirituality, a spirituality immanent to every stray thought and object. Loss and regret also figure prominently here, not as features of pathos, but as rituals which structure both our everyday life and that which refuses to submit to it-much like the typographical rocket -shape of the title poem, which bears an empty space right at its center. The poems in Two Haloed Mourners suggest that this marked void at the core of the mental and spiritual systems we rely on contains the potential to explode our lives-but it is through this explosion that meaningful change occurs. Two Haloed Mourners continues in Mayer's tradition of producing work that is both experimental and deeply moving.

Avg Rating

4.00

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

33%

4 STARS

40%

3 STARS

20%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Bernadette Mayer

Author · 18 books

Bernadette Mayer (born May 12, 1945) is an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Mayer's record-keeping and use of stream-of-consciousness narrative are two trademarks of her writing, though she is also known for her work with form and mythology. In addition to the influence of her textual-visual art and journal-keeping, Mayer's poetry is widely acknowledged as some of the first to speak accurately and honestly about the experience of motherhood. Mayer edited the journal 0 TO 9 with Vito Acconci, and, until 1983, United Artists books and magazines with Lewis Warsh. Mayer taught at the New School for Social Research, where she earned her degree in 1967, and, during the 1970s, she led a number of workshops at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in New York. From 1980 to 1984, Mayer served as director of the Poetry Project, and her influence in the contemporary avant-garde is felt widely, with writers like Kathy Acker, Charles Bernstein, John Giorno, and Anne Waldman having sat in on her workshops. (from Wikipedia)