
A Season in Hell with Rimbaud
Dustin Kyle Pearson(Author)
BOA Editions, Limited (Publisher)
Published on 23. June 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
88 pages
978-1-950774-59-3 (ISBN)
Description
In pursuit of his brother, a man traverses the fantastical and grotesque landscape of Hell, pondering their now fractured relationship.
The poems in Dustin Pearson's A Season in Hell with Rimbaud form an allegorical travelogue that chronicles two brothers' mutual descent into hell. When the older brother runs off by himself, the younger brother begins roaming Hell's different landscapes in search of him. As he searches, the younger brother ruminates on their now fractured relationship: what brought them here? Can they find each other? Will their bonds ever be repaired?
In the tradition of Virgil, Dante, Milton, Swift, Shelley, Joyce, Sarte, and especially Arthur Rimbaud, Pearson leads his speakers on a speculative, epistolary journey through the nether realm inspired by Christian beliefs and tradition. Drawing on the works of French Symbolists and the literary traditions of the American South, A Season in Hell with Rimbaud guides readers through an intimate rendering of one brother's journey to find his lost and estranged brother, perhaps recovering a part of himself in the process.
The poems in Dustin Pearson's A Season in Hell with Rimbaud form an allegorical travelogue that chronicles two brothers' mutual descent into hell. When the older brother runs off by himself, the younger brother begins roaming Hell's different landscapes in search of him. As he searches, the younger brother ruminates on their now fractured relationship: what brought them here? Can they find each other? Will their bonds ever be repaired?
In the tradition of Virgil, Dante, Milton, Swift, Shelley, Joyce, Sarte, and especially Arthur Rimbaud, Pearson leads his speakers on a speculative, epistolary journey through the nether realm inspired by Christian beliefs and tradition. Drawing on the works of French Symbolists and the literary traditions of the American South, A Season in Hell with Rimbaud guides readers through an intimate rendering of one brother's journey to find his lost and estranged brother, perhaps recovering a part of himself in the process.
Reviews / Votes
"If, as Rimbaudtells us, believing you're in Hell means you're there, A Season in
Hell with Rimbaud is Dustin Pearson's Dantean descent. No
Virgil, no Beatrice, but a brother-one who could 'clap a boulder to dust,'
whose presence augured the world: 'There wasn't a time/ I didn't have/ a
brother. When/ my eyes opened,/ he was already here.' It's an epic story,
braiding planes of mind and spirit, reaching across time and space to distant
cosmologies, poetries, theologies. But it's also decidedly granular-sheets
pulled up over a headboard, geysers, a red balloon. Pearson has written an
unforgettable story of two brothers and the myriad universes roiling between
them: 'If the only world is a Hell with my brother / in it, being with him will
make a new one.'"
-Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim
Bell "Dustin
Pearson's oneiric A Season in Hell with Rimbaud is a carnal
traversal. The flesh putrefies and bubbles. From cuts in the feet the blood
leaks and puddles and muddles. Skin-splitting is a critical function of
discovery. The hellscape lives, roils, and revolts per its noxious nature, and
as the speaker threads it in search of their brother (in pursuit of themself),
Hell gets inside you, becomes the body and what can happen to it, and remains
strange: Pearson is a foreigner here, a traveler who does not arrive. I give
thanks for Pearson's dream-walking poems with titles like hardcore band names,
for how they mirror the interior wherein I am a fallible brother, a friend in
the distance, a companion simultaneously corruptible and committed."
-Justin Phillip
Reed, author of The Malevolent Volume "'You can lose
your brother to Hell/ and still be happy inside your house,' begins one of
Pearson's striking and unforgettable poems. Pearson is at once metaphysical and
allegorical. While summoning Rimbaud's symbolism poetics, he creates a voice
uniquely his own, with questions of brotherhood, performative masculinity, and
the horrors and vulnerabilities of our mortal bodies. There are many rooms to
open in each of Pearson's poems. A Season In Hell With
Rimbaud is a rich and thorough
collection. Each time the speaker's brother is addressed, a history of violence
and traumas that the brother has been subjected to in Hell is simultaneously
summoned. But is hell another dimension, an internal space, an external space,
or is it right here on earth? Pearson keeps reminding us that, 'The house has
many rooms,' and we find meaning inside and out of each real, imagined and
metaphysical space. What a poetic accomplishment this is!"
-Raymond Antrobus
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Rochester
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
159 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-950774-59-3 (9781950774593)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dustin Pearson is the author of three poetry collections: A Season in Hell with Rimbaud (BOA, 2022), A Family Is a House (C&R Press, 2019), and Millennial Roost (C&R Press, 2018). His poems have been featured in Bennington Review, Blackbird, Hobart, The Literary Review, The Nation, Poetry Northwest, Poem-a-Day, Saranac Review, TriQuarterly, Vinyl Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the 2015 Katherine C. Turner Award and the 2019 John Mackay Shaw Award from the Academy of American Poets, as well as fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and The Anderson Center at Tower View. . In 2020, a film adaptation of his poem "The Flame in Mother's Mouth" won Best Collaboration at the Cadence Video Poetry Festival. Pearson holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and a M.A. and B.A. in English from Clemson University, where he specialized in Ethnic American literature. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in creative writing at Florida State University. He lives in Summerville, SC.