SHRINKRAP, Litany in Quadraphony by André Spears

AND NOW, AS THEY SAY, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. André Spears’ Shrinkrap begins with a claim to simple reportage – the who, what, where, and when that define the parameters of classic reporting – but this report will lead you down the proverbial rabbit hole and into an experience of our current condition unlike any you have had before. The four voices unleashed in the poem speak back and forth to each other like a musical conversation between Sonny Rollins, Don Cherry, Bob Cranshaw, and Billy Higgins. Complex, yet ultimately simple, the poem is a litany in both its senses. It gives us a list of words entangled with our chaotic circumstance even as it pushes litany back toward its sacred origins in the call and response between clergy and congregation. Carrying on the satirical tradition of the much missed Ed Dorn as inflected by the musical innovations of Cecil Taylor, Spears’ poem is an invitation to “dance | in pants | from | France | at | the | Dreamtime | Slug’s | the Bhopal | thugs | weird hugs | drugs! drugs!” Don’t miss it.

–Michael Boughn

André Spears is the director of the Maud / Olson Library in Gloucester (MA) and a senior editor of the recently archived website Dispatches from the Poetry Wars. His previous book, XIII: Ship of State, excerpted from a Tarot-based work-in-progress, was published by Dispatches Editions (2019), which also re-edited a “virtual chapbook” of his short epic Xo: A Tale for the New Atlantis (1983). A recording of Shrinkrap by Android Spit can be heard on the Dispatches website.

Book Information:

· Paperback: 50 pages

· Binding: Perfect-Bound

· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] 

· ISBN: 978-1-60964-371-3

$16

SHRINKRAP, Litany in Quadra… by BlazeVOX [books]