Description
A surreal poetry collection considering memory and self-discovery through the character of the archon, the keeper of the mental archive.
In Ruth Ellen Kocher's Archon / After, the archive is revealed as both a form of violence and of memory, of site and of event. As keeper of the archive, Kocher's archon determines what pieces of the past may be preserved, housed, documented, ordered, and reviewed. Through these poems, the archon dives deep into memories and into the mysteries of daily life, and, in governance over the future, determines what will be and should be forgotten. The act of forgetting becomes archival violence, with the archon not only serving as the guardian of what remains in the archive but also as an eradicator who decides what is purged.
The imagistic and surreal language of this collection invites us to explore a non-logical terrain as we follow the protagonist into her darkest memories and find a path for our own journey of self-discovery.
About the Author
Ruth Ellen Kocher is the author of eight previous books: godhouse; Third Voice, winner of the PEN Open Book Award; Ending in Planes; Goodbye Lyric: The Gigans and Lovely Gun; domina Un/blued, which won the Dorset Prize and the 2014 PEN/Open Book Award; One Girl Babylon, winner of the Green Rose Prize; When the Moon Knows You're Wandering; and Desdemona's Fire. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Cave Canem Foundation, MacDowell, and Yaddo and is a contributing editor at Poets & Writers Magazine. She is a distinguished professor of English at the University of Colorado.
Reviews
"Kocher's Archon/After performs a languid scorching in reverse. Insisting through fragment and association, the question arises: Can there exist a time uncomplicated and unfettered by memory's narrativizing, un-haunted by the inevitable outcome of the meat of the body? There is only complication and turbulence. This rumination is a matter for poetry and physics, for Kocher's incisive language, though the speaker insists, 'No language exists safely.' There is no safety here. In devastation upon devastation we begin with survival, witnessing the desperation of worry, of 'a soul failing to recognize itself walking toward itself,' and that 'A fragment may never get close enough to itself to be whole again.' Do not come to this book expecting any facile answers, come instead to search the mirror of yourself. Expect questions. Expect to 'murmur your way back' to your own self." -- Rajiv Mohabir, author of "I Will Not Go: Translations, Transformations, and Chutney Fractals"
"Archon/After skillfully 'unwraps itself from a meridian of pulpy vertebrae.' What I mean to say it's these powerful invocations, their 'yearning the perpetuity of return,' carry me to what the poem necessitates: a place where Kocher's skilled phrases bring about a guided telepathy that provokes action into a sense-making we desperately need and into which we settle. Kocher's gorgeous and erudite stamina deepen and arrest the poetic line with so much wisdom. Her Archon/After is what we require right now." -- Prageeta Sharma, author of "Grief Sequence"
Book Information
ISBN 9781632431578
Author Ruth Ellen Kocher
Format Paperback
Page Count 140
Imprint Omnidawn Publishing
Publisher Omnidawn Publishing
Weight(grams) 172g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 12mm
In Ruth Ellen Kocher's Archon / After, the archive is revealed as both a form of violence and of memory, of site and of event. As keeper of the archive, Kocher's archon determines what pieces of the past may be preserved, housed, documented, ordered, and reviewed. Through these poems, the archon dives deep into memories and into the mysteries of daily life, and, in governance over the future, determines what will be and should be forgotten. The act of forgetting becomes archival violence, with the archon not only serving as the guardian of what remains in the archive but also as an eradicator who decides what is purged.
The imagistic and surreal language of this collection invites us to explore a non-logical terrain as we follow the protagonist into her darkest memories and find a path for our own journey of self-discovery.
About the Author
Ruth Ellen Kocher is the author of eight previous books: godhouse; Third Voice, winner of the PEN Open Book Award; Ending in Planes; Goodbye Lyric: The Gigans and Lovely Gun; domina Un/blued, which won the Dorset Prize and the 2014 PEN/Open Book Award; One Girl Babylon, winner of the Green Rose Prize; When the Moon Knows You're Wandering; and Desdemona's Fire. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Cave Canem Foundation, MacDowell, and Yaddo and is a contributing editor at Poets & Writers Magazine. She is a distinguished professor of English at the University of Colorado.
Reviews
"Kocher's Archon/After performs a languid scorching in reverse. Insisting through fragment and association, the question arises: Can there exist a time uncomplicated and unfettered by memory's narrativizing, un-haunted by the inevitable outcome of the meat of the body? There is only complication and turbulence. This rumination is a matter for poetry and physics, for Kocher's incisive language, though the speaker insists, 'No language exists safely.' There is no safety here. In devastation upon devastation we begin with survival, witnessing the desperation of worry, of 'a soul failing to recognize itself walking toward itself,' and that 'A fragment may never get close enough to itself to be whole again.' Do not come to this book expecting any facile answers, come instead to search the mirror of yourself. Expect questions. Expect to 'murmur your way back' to your own self." -- Rajiv Mohabir, author of "I Will Not Go: Translations, Transformations, and Chutney Fractals"
"Archon/After skillfully 'unwraps itself from a meridian of pulpy vertebrae.' What I mean to say it's these powerful invocations, their 'yearning the perpetuity of return,' carry me to what the poem necessitates: a place where Kocher's skilled phrases bring about a guided telepathy that provokes action into a sense-making we desperately need and into which we settle. Kocher's gorgeous and erudite stamina deepen and arrest the poetic line with so much wisdom. Her Archon/After is what we require right now." -- Prageeta Sharma, author of "Grief Sequence"
Book Information
ISBN 9781632431578
Author Ruth Ellen Kocher
Format Paperback
Page Count 140
Imprint Omnidawn Publishing
Publisher Omnidawn Publishing
Weight(grams) 172g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 12mm
