Drink Me by Mary Kasimor

Mary Kasimor’s remarkable book Drink Me explores a world sundered and broken by violent consumerism and miscommunication: “more/bombs in my mouth // money is god/mitigating my fear.” The ethical and aesthetic conditions for meaningful interactions have been photoshopped, pixelated, and eaten raw by a predatory culture, but Kasimor’s poetry resists easy consumption and works instead like the elixir in Alice in Wonderland that allows for a way into and through the cultural ruptures and dislocations in our contemporary moment. And, like Alice herself after her transformation, the scale here is small, with an intelligent attention and nuanced care for detail. These poems are full of “voices coming from small places / an acorn.” The result is a startling reorientation in which language and meaning are embodied and re-imbibed: “wholly is a word/you can get your mouth a/round.” These poems are a brilliant and necessary tonic.

—Jonathan Minton, editor of Word For/Word

In DRINK ME, Mary Kasimor begins with a beating heart, slash acting as pulse, and she briskly moves into the sensual aggregate that is being alive. In her intense, inventive view, “the genius/of dirt are flowers,” “money is god” and “god is enormous.” But the visceral, corporeal existence of earthbound mortals is paired with something celestial: the deep sky, planets and stars appear again and again for perspective, like mirrors, which also appear again and again, casting back a vast range of experiences. Even with her fixed and fearless gaze upon the worst, most terrifying work of being human, marbled throughout is what is the best: the struggle to make sense, make meaning, make beauty. To enter this book is to enter a wonderland of magic and mirrors.

—Carolyn Guinzio

Mary Kasimor has been writing poetry for many years. She has had several collections of her poetry published, including The Landfill Dancers (BlazeVOX Books 2014), Saint Pink (Moria Books 2015), The Prometheus Collage (Locofo 2017), and Nature Store (Dancing Girl Press 2017).

Book Information:

· Paperback: 74 pages

· Binding: Perfect-Bound

· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] 

· ISBN: 978-1-60964-330-0

$16

Drink Me by Mary Kasimor Bo… by BlazeVOX [books]