Description: Complex Sleep, Tony Tost's ambitious second book of poems, leaps upward with an astounding multiplicity of voices, utterances, and bursts. Each leap marks a sure and precise entry into a world of images, ideas, and sensations that is brand new - the true accomplishment of any poetic work. audacious in scope, swiping at meaning via language as fragmented music. Tost takes on the problem of physical shape, reorchestrates phrases according to the alphabet, and writes himself into the hypnagogic state between waking and dreaming. Informed by their own procedural constraints, these poems invent forms that tap the unconscious poetic, the very complexity embodied in sleep. All the while, Tost reforms utterance beyond the mere epistemology of much contemporary poetry. discovering the what, Complex Sleep is about discovering how to say what needs to be said. Skip the opera, this book performs.
Review Quotes: " This reflexive and, yes, complex collection of procedurally nuanced anti-lyrics is a useful example of what is happening right now. Tost’ s approach is speechy and textual by turns. He hypnotizes you with his tricks but then convinces you to concentrate on how good the work is. You wake up feeling refreshed and thinking how excellent it is to enjoy reading poetry this much! " — Laura Moriarty