Description
Poetry. Berry's AMPERSAND REVISITED is a lurid, lyrical trio of open prose poems marking up the blueprint of familial myth-making. Consisting of three long poems, AMPERSAND REVISITED traces the legacy of a father drawn toward the occult and a mother immured in a personality disorder through the experiential wisdom of a neurotic Connecticut teenager. Circumscribed by a growing awareness of erotic consequence, the speaker struggles to navigate a spiritual and anatomical landscape that is equal parts lyrical and lurid. A deft balancing act between sublimation and the sublime, Simeon Berry's narrative moves lithely through open prose forms, illuminating each psychic Venn diagram as he untangles illness from intuitive information, seeking the troubling crux at the heart of the ineffable. Selected by Ariana Reines (COEUR DE LION, MERCURY) for The National Poetry Series.
When I first started writing, I liked to think in italics
whenever I was at a loss.
Not startled, but terribly
surprised or caught unawares. Then I could be
formally afraid.
Even the last summer when I'd gone into the woods
to figure out why I didn't
want to have sex
with my parent's au pair, I knew
I was watching myself for the slant.
Author Bio
Simeon Berry has been an associate editor for Ploughshares, and won a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Grant and a Career Chapter Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. His second book, Monograph, won the 2014 National Poetry Series. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Author City: SOMERVILLE, MA USA