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WU GOING THERE Phyllis Wat 72 pages, paperback Cover design by Noam Scheindlin Caligraphy by Zu Dong Guan ISBN: 978-0-93599-28-1 Copyright © 2015 $15.00 "The wisdom so alive in Phyllis Wat's poetry is channeled through the way she gets conversation and observation to exchange leads by turns, letting what is seen 'grow beyond its appearance' (as her buddy Paul Klee says) and what is said becomes 'the strong focus that binds / uncertainty' (as Phyllis says). And this does happen - the turns of thought in Wu going there are often surprising and shapely, changing in scale while the volume is kept steady. But what's also changing this poetry is its unforced sense of duration as an inherent property, bound up with the poet's lived experience, wherein the emphasis falls on depth in any instant, its attendant levels of detail, the pleasures of looking around inside." Anselm Berrigan "There is in Phyllis Wat's language a kind of silken power - delicate, strong and flexible. Wu going there offers poems that examine her varied interests in physics, Chinese language, dance, literary delight and loss and the questions of the domestic. She has mastered the meditative in poems that combine philosophical consideration with dreamscape as in the series of poems based on her reading of / traveling with Bolano. She can turn, spin and explode a phrase: 'the rubber band is / a vibrating string of theory' or 'Sofa, a thirteen minute / walk in the rain.' Her poems delight but they can also harrow, as with 'In Green Begin' which powerfully explores violence and its impact. Phyllis Wat is in full control in service to her art and craft." Patricia Spears Jones "Like Bolano, the path for Phyllis Wat is through the familiar, mastering the details. In Wu going there she goes there, traveling through the extra-ordinary ordinary dailiness at home, on the street and in films, operas, comics, dance, mathematical formulas. Her poems are thinking poems; the joy is in the slipping away and breaking out of ideas, landing with a detail. Like Olson, her writing dances on the page. Truth is not a principle here, it is what is actually going on: 'a woman with / a baby carriage on the street / watering the trees.' It is a delight to read Wu and put your ear and imagination under the guidance of Phyllis Wat." Barbara Henning UPDATED ORDERING INFO COMING SOON RETURN TO BOOK LIST |
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