Description
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?
About the author
Canadian poet Camille Martin is the acclaimed author of four full-length collections: Looms (Shearsman Books, 2012), Sonnets (Shearsman Books, 2010), Codes of Public Sleep (BookThug, 2007), and Sesame Kiosk (Potes & Poets, 2001). Martin has performed her poetry in more than thirty cities in Canada, the United States, France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Her work has been widely and internationally published in journals. She lives in Toronto.
Of Looms, Meredith Quartermain writes that "in tightly woven tapestry, Martin's 'backstreet songs' re-invent a music of knowledge that navigates the hucksterism and catastrophe threatening our planet." Rob McLennan praises the "expansiveness" of Looms, whose poems "exist in that magical place where words, images and ideas collide, creating connections that previously had never been. In his review for Bookslut, Cort Bledsoe states that in Looms "Martin has proven herself to be a solid poet with an ear for language and an inquisitive mind, delving into the big questions we all face. Martin has woven a rich tapestry of poems that are well worth perusing." And Steve Spence for Stride Magazine writes that Looms is "impressive and addictive."
