Poetry. THE ODICY, Cyrus Console's second book, uses pentameter in an attempt to take the measure of our epoch's cultural and ecological crises. Tracking a mysterious central character named Tony, the book combines the end-time rhetoric of contemporary fundamentalism with meditations on artificial color and the rise of fountain drinks, revisiting Dante's animus for the counterfeiter upon the purveyors of NutraSweet. It attempts to come to terms with social continua on which sugar substitutes are manufactured by pharmaceutical giants, or where weaponized defoliants like AgentOrange evolve into best-selling agrichemicals like Roundup. Console's English is straight out of 21st century Topeka, while his deployment of canonical meter posits the sustainability of verse form over a longer human term.

Author City: LAWRENCE, KS USA

Cyrus Console is from Topeka, Kansas. He is the author of THE ODICY (Omnidawn, 2011) and BRIEF UNDER WATER (Burning Deck, 2008). He teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute and University of Kansas. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

Reviews and Other Links
Publishers Weekly starred review
Stephen Burt @ San Francisco Chronicle
Andrew Wessels @ The Quarterly Conversation
Karla Kelsey @ The Constant Critic
David Hadbawnik @ Jacket2
Joshua Gray @ The Rumpus
conversation with Ben Lerner @ Los Angeles Review of Books