Poetry. VERBAL PARADISE is the first book of a projected six books of preverbs. "'Words say too much to let you know the truth.' George Quasha's torqued, enigmatic proverbs create unlikely balances among discrepant engagements. The vectors of these marvelous poems work at cross purposes, keeping each other aloft. These are sparkling aphoristic aporias for a new age in an old time. 'Poetry,' says Quasha, 'resists immortality with difficulty.' And also with wit and charm. Be here now, in which case immortality will take care of itself"—Charles Bernstein.
Author City: BARRYTOWN, NY USA
George Quasha's work as a poet, including Somapoetics (1973) and AINU DREAMS (1999) among others, has steadily broadened to explore principles in common within language, sculpture, drawing, video, sound, installation, and performance. Preverbs, of which VERBAL PARADISE is the first book, has been a core vehicle of this exploration. His recent Axial Stones: An Art of Percarious Balance, foreword by Carter Ratcliff (2006), focuses on sculpture, drawing, and language (as text and installation) shown at the Baumgartner Gallery (Chelsea), Slought Foundation (Philadelphia), the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (SUNY New Paltz), and elsewhere. His axial video works with language, sound, and portraiture, including art is: Speaking Portraits, recording over 800 artists, poets, and musicians in eleven countries (saying what art/music/poetry is) and exhibited internationally at museums, galleries, and universities. Awarded a Gugenheim Fellowship in video art and an NEA Fellowship in poetry, the latest of his twenty books is An Art of Limina: Gary Hill's Works and Writings (with Charles Stein; foreword by Lynne Cooke) (2009). Co-founder and -publisher with Susan Quasha of Station Hill Press of Barrytown, New York, he performs both solo and in collaboration with Gary Hill, Charles Stein, and David Arner.
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