Quarantine / Contagion
Published on 1. December 2009
Book
Hardback
80 pages
978-1-906570-13-2 (ISBN)
Description
Narrated by a man dying of the plague, "Quarantine" is a book-length poem that explores sexuality and subjectivity as well as the viability of narrative itself. Lying in a field beside his dead wife and son, the narrator describes the events leading up to his and his family's death. "Quarantine" is ostensibly set outside London in 1665, during the bubonic plague, but the motives of the narrator eventually cast doubt onto his story, as does the fact that plague victims often become delirious and may lapse into a coma before death. His story accumulates via accretion and contradiction, complicating his attempts truthfully to describe his life. To counter-act the narrator's hold on the story, ten passages, written in the third-person, are interspersed throughout "Quarantine", providing an objective vantage point. After the narrator finishes his story, "Quarantine" undoes itself in "Contagion", which mirrors 'distortedly, and in reverse' the narrative.
Reviews / Votes
Brian Henry's new book needs to be experienced as a whole. Opening it at random and sampling a few pages might give the reader a sense of the book's tone - as well as its preliminary situation (dying of the plague, a man wonders back on his life, its disturbances and violations). But a partial reading could not fully appreciate the book's most pivotal fact: how the narrative ground of the 40 QuarantineA" poems is overturned by a completely different principle of composition in the series of 40 'mirroring' poems entitled ContagionA". - In the moment between the closure of the narrative portion and the opening of the cryptic appendix, a profound change has occurred: the fragments now examined appear to be the exhumed 'remains', the mysterious petrifaction, of lines just previously encountered in the first section. - This is the exquisitely executed impact of Quarantine: :Contagion's concept - one experiences composition and decomposition as central to writing's paradox: the life - and death - of the writer.A" (Zack Finch, Boston Review) In this ghostly, dead man's series, a stark world of violence and disease arises like a reworking of Bergman's The Seventh Seal. [Henry's] language is robed in history's strange temporality, running back and forth, hitting the present again and again. Yet, curiously, it is a book without time or place - the river is any river, the plague is any plague , and the time clearly could be now.A" (Eleni Sikelianos)More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Lancs
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-906570-13-2 (9781906570132)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
BRIAN HENRY is author of four books of poetry - Astronaut (Arc, 2000 / Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2002), Graft (Arc, 2002 / New Issues Press, 2002), Quarantine (Ahsahta Press, 2006) and The Stripping Point (Counterpath Press, 2007) - and his poetry has been widely published in magazines and journals in the USA, the UK, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia and the Czech Republic, as well as being translated into Russian, Croatian and Slovenian. He is also known for his critical essays on contemporary poetry and for his poetry translations, particularly of the work of the Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun. Recipient of many prestigious literary awards, including the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, 2006 and three awards from the Poetry Society of America in 2001, 2003 and 2008 respectively, Brian Henry has taught at Plymouth State College and the University of Georgia, and is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Richmond. He co-edits the international journal Verse and lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Content
Quarantine / 1-9 The dog has found a tree - Quarantine / 10-16 The moon seemed to glow - Quarantine / 17-18 The young man sitting by the river - Quarantine / 19-21 The young man approaches the river - Quarantine / 22-24 The young man paces the room - Quarantine / 25-27 Just before dawn - Quarantine / 28-31 Returning from work - Quarantine / 32 Near midday - Quarantine / 33-36 The young man removes the leeches - Quarantine / 37 The young man waits - Quarantine / 38-40 Appendix Contagion 1-40 Biographical note