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(a) lullaby without any music
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Wax World
by Robert Mittenthal
ISBN 978-0-925904-90-4
Poetry
116 pages
$16
2011

Wax World

Note on Wax World

 
It’s an unfortunate iron that walks stiffly over us, pressing our clothes. 
I miss the comforts of a baggy garment which covers everything while revealing very little.

How do we come to come to speech when language has been stolen from us, when we’ve lost our words?  What can words convey, when they belong to the interests of the cultural industry as it serves the interests of commerce, industry, government, warfare. 

We’ve lost the word for what connects our public and private selves.  Pre-owned words whitewashed and hung out to fade in the sun.  It’s a contest where juris-diction is denied.  There is no room to plead for the last poet standing.  And without standing, we’re left outside.

We are left with a surface, a wax or skin which registers the vague and shifting impressions.  In this wax world of malleable, soft, false imitation, distorted surface is the only reality we know.  The truth of appearances is that there are only appearances. 

How then to say something clear, definite, decisive.  How offer any certainty of thought or opinion without bullying the reader, the audience?  How make a music out of such unpromising and recalcitrant shifting materials?

The writing in Wax World comes from that condition, explores it, tries to build with that wax, with materials that shift and slide and change even as you use them.

 

Review:

"In Mittenthal's work, it's the idea of comedy in an explosion of craft that catches you. He's quiet about it. He understands it will adhere—and it's designed to—to linger. There's almost a battle going on—an intellect that exists only to be destroyed by itself so that all that was is as it was—only clearer. And his sound sounds the most sounded out a boxer squaring off to take on the psychology of currency and its effects on labor. Not political OR only political. A clarity and honest posture mixed with poignant sarcasm about how the world sees itself. It's about seeing inequality. 'Paid to forget, I recall more'"—Nico Vassilakis.


Robert Mittenthal is author of Value Unmapped (Nomados), Martyr Economy, Ready Terms (Tsunami Editions), and the newly arrived Wax World (Chax). Irrational Dude, a chapbook of collaborative work with Nico Vassilakis, was published in 2009 by tir aux pigeons. Mittenthal was instrumental in creating and curating the Subtext Reading Series in Seattle.  He blogs at: http://rmutts.blogspot.com

 

 

 

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