Unsun
2019
First Published
4.27
Average Rating
124
Number of Pages
Poetry that aspires ‘to conjugate in a future imperfect,’ but a future nonetheless. In his fifth poetry volume, American poet Andrew Zawacki expands his inquiry into the possibilities and dangers of a ‘global pastoral,’ exploring geographies alternately enhanced and flattened out by digital networks, international transit, the uneven and invisible movements of capital, and the unrelenting feedback loops of data surveillance, weather disaster, war. Wheeling interference patterns of systems of meaning, from radio signals and runway signage to foreign phrases and babytalk, interact with the ‘langscape’ of English, while punctuation is retrofitted as coding. In creating a politically committed lyric form that opens all the dimensions of language – sonic and semantic, syntactic and graphic – Unsun sustains an oblique conversation with Paul Celan’s Fadensonnen, Chris Marker’s Sans soleil, and Michael Palmer’s Sun . Loosely structured by the settings of analog photography, the book features a suite of the author’s black-and-white, large format images alongside an adaptation of Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei and a series of fractured sonnets for – and from – his young daughter.
Avg Rating
4.27
Number of Ratings
22
5 STARS
59%
4 STARS
14%
3 STARS
23%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Andrew Zawacki
Author · 6 books
[A]n American poet, critic, editor, and translator. His first book By Reason of Breakings won the 2001 University of Georgia Contemporary Poetry Series, chosen by Forrest Gander. Work from his second book, Anabranch, was awarded the 2002 Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. The volume also includes his 2001 chapbook Masquerade, selected by C.D. Wright to receive the 2002 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award. He has coedited the international literary magazine Verse with Brian Henry since 1995 and has taught at the University of Georgia since 2005. Andrew Zawacki is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the first Greek-letter organization among black college students. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew\_Z...)
