Poetry. "It's not possible to be more phenomenologically direct than the poetry on these pages. This is removal of the obstacles of perception, beginning with perception, often by means of the obstacles themselves. This is what the sky is. All other skies in this one. There is a host of impossibilities to be found in AERODROME ORION & STARRY MESSENGER. Susan Gevirtz's page is both an inclusion of a scale too vast for inclusion and a selection of the minutiae that includes it. Someone might say 'air.' She has said 'astro stage.' I'd introduce the Sanskrit term 'akasa' (akasa is free or open space--the most primary and pervasive of elements--medium of life and sound). What is all over the place is normally not only beyond our grasp, it's not even noticeable. A path is usually cut or carved. Yet her paths are melted into the medium that is itself the way. This is incredibly accurate with regard to consciousness when we are indeed conscious. Terribly limited terms are not only not obstacles, they're instrumental and indispensable in opening the view--like little portals. Like latches. Like Lockheed's P3 Orion 4 engine aircraft. Hers is a prosody that responds to the physical forces of flight. She measures in leap seconds (again, not possible). Just as she has asked of a feather, I can with like awe and admiration ask of each page of this work: 'how can there be such a thing as'"--Robert Kocik.

Author City: SAN FRANCISCO, CA USA

Susan Gevirtz's books include AERODROME ORION & STARRY MESSENGER (Kelsey Street Press, 2010), Broadcast (Trafficker Press, 2009), THRALL (Post Apollo, 2007), Omatic & After St. John (dpress, 2006), HOURGLASS TRANSCRIPTS (Burning Deck, 2001), SPELT, collaboration with Myung Mi Kim (a+bend press, 1999), BLACK BOX CUTAWAY (Kelsey Street Press, 1999), Prosthesis : : Caesarea (Potes and Poets, 1994; reissue Little Red Leaves, 2009), Taken Place (Reality Street, 1993), LINEN MINUS (Avenue B, 1992), Domino: point of entry (Leave Books, 1992), Korean and Milkhouse (ABACUS, Potes and Poets, 1991), and the critical study Narrative's Journey: The Fiction and Film Writing of Dorothy Richardson (Peter Lang, 1996). Many essays have appeared in literary magazines and scholarly journals. She was an Assistant Professor for ten years at Sonoma State University and now teaches in the MFA in Poetry Program at Mills College. With Greek poet Siarita Kouka she runs The Paros Symposium, on Paros island, an annual meeting of poets and translators from Greece and the United States.

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Michael Cross @ The Disinhibitor