Poetry. MEMNOIR is a high-speed chase through intersections of chance and consciousness in the "experience of experiencing" our lives. Movies and memory swap visceral/visual thrill with mathematics and philosophy as Retallack plays with our reliance on symbols and cultural frames of reference to get "to the point" of a given moment. "Joan Retallack's marvelous Memnoir is so much more than what one can say about it. The unforgettable words she offers look back on 'one of those periods when life seems superficially friendly' or is this the 'hot majestic interlude' of a film version of the same?"--John Ashbery.

Author City: ANNANDLE-HUDSON, NY USA

Joan Retallack is the author of nine books of poetry, including PROCEDURAL ELEGIES/WESTERN CIV CONT'D/, MEMNOIR, How to Do Things with Words, and Afterimages. She is also the author of Musicage, a volume of conversations she had with John Cage over a three-year period. Her most recent critical works are The Poethical Wager and Gertrude Stein: Selections, for which she wrote an extensive introductory essay. Retallack is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Humanities at Bard College.