Given the comments on this list lately about the need to diversify our
reading and sympathies, I thought it appropriate to mention a couple of
books.

   1) An important North American publication by the British poet Allen
Fisher is planned by Tsunami Editions, a Canadian press out on the west
coast.  It's a reprint of _Brixton Fractals_, a book many denizens of this
list will already be familiar with.  If you're not familiar with it, I've
included an extract at the end of this message. The new edition will have
the text corrected and the binding and typesetting done properly (no small
matter, as the original edition quickly disintegrates if read
frequently!).  I've just received the 1998 catalogue for New Star Editions
(the distributor), which promises to give a firm publication date in next
Spring's catalogue.  Some patience is therefore required, but I thought an
advance notice might be welcome. 
   I'll let the poetry below speak for itself, but other members of this
list, I'm sure, can readily sing its praises.  _Brixton Fractals_ is part
of Fisher's main poetry project of the '80s and '90s, _Gravity as a
consequence of shape_; other volumes are still available--_Breadboard_
(Spanner), _Civic Crime_ (Sound & Language), _Dispossession and Cure_
(Reality Street), _Fizz_ (Spanner) and _Now's the Time_ (Form).  

	2) A book already published: Rob MacKenzie's _Off Ardglas_, from
Invisible Books.  Has this been mooted on this list when I was
unsubscribed?  I've heard no mention of it.  When it's not 2:00 am Toronto
time I'll perhaps type some in if anyone's curious.  (Actually, I have a
spare copy sent me by Rob for review, if anyone's game.)

--N


-----
>From Allen Fisher, _Brixton Fractals_:

Banda (excerpt)

Took chances in London traffic
where the culture breaks
tone colours burn from exhaustion
emphasised by wind,
looking ahead for sudden tail lights
a vehicle changes
lanes into your path and birds,
over the rail bridge, seem purple.
A mathematician at the turn of the century
works out invariant notions in a garden
every so often climbs a bike,
makes a figure eight around
rose beds to help concentration,
then returns to the blackboard.
The schemers dreamed a finite language
where innocence became post experiential
believing the measurable, ultra-violet from a lamp,
isolated sunlight curvature
made false language what can be done
to separate
from perception.
In a dream apparently without volition
a car burning and
watch myself there
sealed-in beneath a smog dome
uncertain what to try for next.

Midnight: a solo of the Nightingale.  Great silence.
Open a gate
against hinged pressure of rust,
white pigment to denote reflected light.
Singularity burgled up the drain pipe,
a busy rush pursued tenderness at its slats
padlocked into pastoral quicksilver.
"If one of my students should one day rear children
in a better way
Surround myself in music, that is physically
forget the dream as a move towards preventing
objectification of vision.
Legal power, completion, smothering,
on the shelf flashpowder and a can.
Practice to assist improvisation
holds onto the pattern of railings
a super-structure of sound-curve symmetry
recognised, and examined, by autodidacts.








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