Description:
Poetry by Jennifer Bartlett. 56 pages.
From PREFACE by Robert Grenier:
Jennifer Bartlett 'makes the case'/ testifies to all the actual crap that being born with cerebral palsy entitles her to experience, and what life has been like/is like in contemporary America for her--given her lot--and then, in the second part of the book ('despite the facts') turns round and Celebrates Her Existence anyway: "AWAY WITH ALL THAT !" she cries, petulantly and determinatively (waves her arm), and devotes the 'other half of the book' to her ordinary interested investigations/explorations of what is going on & necessary in her daily life in Brooklyn/New York, as if she were a real/actual/'extraordinary' sentient being (like everybody in a body) determined to 'understand' and attempt to 'know the whole of it'/what each can know from the 'absolute perspective' of each one's own organism.
Review Quotes:
Preface
What is 'my lot' ? What's in 'a lot' ? Thrash round & Curse my Maker--why
not ? Or lay the whole circumstance out, exactly as it has been experienced,
& may need to be said to be . . . because the words are 'different' but the Same
as all that, & the humans are here (only (?)) to Tell the Life Story (so that
'That' may come into existence & dwell 'in the flesh', at least temporarily (!))
. . . because God is Jealous of all the Fun we're having down here below, & has
elected to 'join the fray', the holy maiden Jennifer Bartlett was born !
Jennifer Bartlett 'makes the case'/ testifies to all the actual crap that being
born with cerebral palsy entitles her to experience, and what life has been
like/is like in contemporary America for her--given her lot--and then, in the
second part of the book ('despite the facts') turns round and Celebrates Her
Existence anyway: "AWAY WITH ALL THAT !" she cries, petulantly and
determinatively (waves her arm), and devotes the 'other half of the book'
to her ordinary interested investigations/explorations of what is going on
& necessary in her daily life in Brooklyn/New York, as if she were a real/
actual/'extraordinary' sentient being (like everybody in a body) determined to
'understand' and attempt to 'know the whole of it'/what each can know from
the 'absolute perspective' of each one's own organism:
Into the Tumult ! !
Into which each has been 'thrown'--but then, how/what to say to/of it
(including love poems, if it comes to that, for some other mortal/human) . . . is
articulated here admirably, beginning to end !
a movement spastic
and unwieldy
is its own lyric
Well, for god's sake, of course it is ! Because of her . . . ! (She dood it, &/or She's
done it ! !) Which these poems demonstrate and prove.
--Robert Grenier
June 23, 2014