Poetry. Spanning the permeable boundaries of public and private, of music and syntax, of waking and dreaming, the edgy lyrics of CODES OF PUBLIC SLEEP constellate a rich linguistic universe shot through with questions to be savoured in slow time: Whither and whether the withering weather? Is the subject hungry yet, in the impoverished opinion of its sublime trajectory? Martin's first full-length collection is a synesthetic feast of mindful dialogue in lively antiphonies of fusion and abyss. Each poem resonates as an island in a vast neural plenum, one that is uncomfortable with the notion of the lyrical I (eye). This vision is through a mirror that reflects what we as readers imagine it reflects; in it we recognize the perpetual dance between the emptiness of conceptual habits and their insistently dazzling emergence. Fill up your cosmic cocktail and tune in to the music of the spheres, the queries of quarks. Glabella anagram? What happens next?
Author Hometown: Toronto, ON CAN
About the author: Camille Martin, a Toronto poet and collage artist, is the author of SONNETS (Shearsman Books, 2010) and CODES OF PUBLIC SLEEP (BookThug, 2007). She was born in El Dorado, Arkansas, and spend her childhood in Lafayette, Louisiana. A classical musician from an early age, she earned graduate degrees in both music and English literature. After residing in New Orleans for fourteen years, following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 she moved to Toronto, where she teaches writing and literature at Ryerson University. Her current work-in-progress is a long poem entitled The Evangeline Papers, based on her Cajun/Acadian heritage and drawing on her recent visit to Nova Scotia to participate in an archaeological dig at Beaubassin and to research Acadian and Mik'maq history and culture.
Reviews:
interview with rob mclennan
author site
“CODES OF PUBLIC SLEEP breaks open the code of private thought to modes of knowing catastrophe that defy insufficient isolating sagas. Camille Martin’s poetry is the shattering signal from a laudably wild tongue that will not keep still for our death-drive culture. This is a remarkable collection.”
—Carla Harryman
“[In CODES OF PUBLIC SLEEP,] Martin’s enjoyment of language is clear—every noun, verb, adjective, and adverb is pushed to contain as much meaning as possible.... The words are rich in connotation and definition.... Ideas, represented by unique word combinations, resonate. Sound is also key (as it should be in poetry), and Martin pays attention to assonance, as in ‘Trace Reports.’ Martin provides visually or intellectually inventive and effective images, ideas and metaphors... Moments stand out and seem to perfectly capture a feeling.”
—Danforth Review