No name but love, indeed, for Marcus Slease, in this exciting collection of small, surprising, lyrical poems which continue (very nicely, thank you) the ideas and methods of such poets as Clark Coolidge in At Egypt, Phil Whalen in Scenes of Life at the Capital, and Roy Kiyooka in Kyoto Airs. The writer’s eye & his heart remain open throughout this book, the language is clean, clear & refined, and one comes out exhilarated both by what Slease sees & by the way that he says it. In a world of spam (to paraphrase the author) he gives us (good) ham. With a big side of kimchee. Reader, read on! Because Mu! So! –in Japanese = Emptiness! Yes!
- Tim Atkins (author of Petrarch)
Marcus Slease's Mu (So) Dream (Window) lets in haunting landscapes where bodies and locations are in constant motion, dissolving and precipitating, presence and absence following each other's shadow: The foreign desert is encountered by its sand blowing through a muted city, delivery food and Rumi are found left on the doorstep, the taste and warmth of "you" are dissolving on the tongue. Here, writing becomes an act of tracing, in which all presences are intensified in their muted, bodily foreignness.
- Jiyoon Lee (author of IMMA)
This poetry has seen a lot, has seen the world, but it catapults onward unjaded, grimy/sparkly, "huffing life." If poetry is throught [thought/through/through it/rough/route/wrought] then Marcus Slease is on its tube train and he's pulling out the stops, he'll "unlatch/the room" you read in.
Cathy Wagner (author of Nervous Device)
Labels: Cathy Wagner, clark coolidge, dream window, emptiness, eroticism, Imma, Ji Yoon Lee, love nothing, lust, marcus slease, mu, mu so, phillip whalen, Poor Claudia, Roy Kiyooka, South Korea, Tim Atkins
