Curio: Grotesques and Satires from the Electronic Age
by Elizabeth Bachinsky; revised second edition with an Afterword by K. Silem Mohammad
Toronto: BookThug, 2009, ISBN 978-1-897388-40-2, 109 pp., $20 paper.

Elizabeth Bachinsky is the author of three books of poetry, Curio (BookThug 2005), Home of Sudden Service (Nightwood Editions, 2006), nominated for the Governor General's Award, and God of Missed Connections (Nightwood Editions, 2009). She lives in Vancouver, a good place for any poet of an experimental bent.

Curio is, well, a curious book. It is made up of a number of disparate sections. One of the first is titled "From the Secret Diaries of Antonin Artaud," in which Bachinsky attempts to write in the voice of Artaud. Many of the entries blur the distinction between prose and poetry, making the reader wonder where the concept of prose poetry has taken us. Is this a flashback to Pound's famous war cry calling for (paraphrased) 'poetry as good as prose.' An excellent example both of Bachinsky's response to this summons as well as of her wit is the letter found at p. 27 which begins:

Dear Sir,
     It is with great trepidation that I write to you. But, seeing as you have been unable to afford me a reply regarding the manuscript I sent to you many months ago, I feel it is my duty to inform you of a grave error in my judgment. It has been my misfortune to have sent you a manuscript which, I feel, is horribly unfit for publication in P_________; I would therefore like to withdraw my submission forthwith.

The letter continues in the same self-deprecating, ironic manner.

The next section, Spy Cam: Surveillance Series, recalls some of Erin Moure's or Susan Howe's work. Consider "Supermarket" on p. 34, which begins: "Enough pussy. Wash your hands. It is time to go out. . ." The page ends with the line "Her mouth is cruel, but you know bruises fade and this moment, this moment, when you know you are, should stretch on forever." The facing page, p. 35, mirrors the previous one, the first line on that page being "This moment when you know you are should stretch on forever." and ends "Enough pussy. Wash your hands. It is time to go out into the city." Each poem in this section is the same, with the facing page reflecting the first, but with subtle differences, which bring the poem into the realm of critical theory.

One of the poems in an unreplicable section title is "Lead the Wants." The entire poem is an anagram of a famous poem by a famous poet. What does the fearless reader make of this: "Brilliant duel them corset her penis. / A million toxic duds dangle. Get a / Night-rise or day-rites --merge, mend."(57) Perhaps these lines on p. 63 will give you a clue as to what is going on and by whom:

Witt witt witt
Guj guj guj guj guj guj
Record duos fly
Re: e, tu

Each of the lines is supposed to match the rhythm and sound of that of the poem from which it was derived. Amazingly, even without the help of K. Silem Mohammed's Afterword, added in this revised edition, in which he sets out to explicate "Lead the Wants," the reader begins to unravel the concept of who and what through the haze of these distortions coming to a perhaps passive recognition that what is at play is T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."

Elizabeth Bachinsky is as much a formalist, as much an intellectual poet, as is Christian Bšk. Paraphrasing the 60s anthem first heard at a Black Panthers rally: "Write on, Elizabeth!"

John Herbert Cunningham is a Winnipeg writer. He reviews poetry in Canada for Malahat Review, Arc, Antigonish Review, Fiddlehead and The Danforth Review, in the U.S. for Quarterly Conversations, Rain Taxi, Rattle, Big Bridge and Galatea Revisits, and in Australia for Jacket.

Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.

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