One
Published on 15. January 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
96 pages
978-1-934909-97-3 (ISBN)
Description
Poetry. "Gerald Fleming is a remarkable writer, made more so by his commitment to the prose poem, a form which at its best, as here, is a delicious treat on almost every occasion. His new volume, ONE, takes on the monosyllable and wrestles it into dizzying and wonderful pretzel-esque works which may appear, at first glance, non-pretzel- esque. You'll probably love this book as much as I do."--Frederick Barthelme
"At times wry and wickedly self-aware, these linked prose vignettes deepen into a resonant, searching meditation on that which resides hidden within us--metastatic cells, racism we've spent half our years unlearning, the slow burn of our lives. Fleming's voice is rich with a plainspoken elegance that evokes flickers of Ovid ('the years fled from her face,' he writes in elegy) or the quieted mind of a Gerard Manley Hopkins who's made peace with his god and is engaged in the contemplative practice of ordinary life. In this almost- Oulipian project, poet and speaker both gently interrogate language and self, 'take each shred down from the line / sew it to the next, soak it in brine / look at it / see that it means in ways we've not known--now finds us, & like us it's scarred now, but still ours--back in our mouths, on our tongues--quick birds! --flung into the air of our time.' ONE is a powerful collection woven of grief, compassion, and the joy of a life well lived. Sidling up against fiction's narrative drive, it's told in a reinvented sprung rhythm sure and steady as a heartbeat, as the beat of one's own footsteps."--Miriam Bird Greenberg
"At times wry and wickedly self-aware, these linked prose vignettes deepen into a resonant, searching meditation on that which resides hidden within us--metastatic cells, racism we've spent half our years unlearning, the slow burn of our lives. Fleming's voice is rich with a plainspoken elegance that evokes flickers of Ovid ('the years fled from her face,' he writes in elegy) or the quieted mind of a Gerard Manley Hopkins who's made peace with his god and is engaged in the contemplative practice of ordinary life. In this almost- Oulipian project, poet and speaker both gently interrogate language and self, 'take each shred down from the line / sew it to the next, soak it in brine / look at it / see that it means in ways we've not known--now finds us, & like us it's scarred now, but still ours--back in our mouths, on our tongues--quick birds! --flung into the air of our time.' ONE is a powerful collection woven of grief, compassion, and the joy of a life well lived. Sidling up against fiction's narrative drive, it's told in a reinvented sprung rhythm sure and steady as a heartbeat, as the beat of one's own footsteps."--Miriam Bird Greenberg
More details
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
159 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-934909-97-3 (9781934909973)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Gerald Fleming's previous books are THE CHOREOGRAPHER (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2013), NIGHT OF PURE BREATHING (Hanging Loose Press, 2011), and SWIMMING CLIMBING ONTO SHORE (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2005). He taught in San Francisco's public schools for thirty-seven years and has written three books for teachers, including Rain, Steam, and Speed (Jossey-Bass/Wiley). From 1995 to 2000, he edited and published the literary magazine Barnabe Mountain Review, and is currently editing both the limited- edition vitreous magazine One (More) Glass and The Collected Prose & Poetry of Lawrence Fixel. He lives most of the year in Lagunitas, California, and part of the year in Paris, France.