The Daily Glance
Susana Gardner's [lapsed insel weary] plays with form as it explores issues ranging from women in literature to love. It is my introduction to Gardner's work. Before reading it, I only knew her as the mastermind behind Dusie and the Kollectiv, and it is a good introduction. This book morphs in forms, but themes carry throughout the book. Carolyn Forche calls it "an extended social lyric" in a blurb, and I think she's right. At moments the book feels more like a collective commentary on women's exclusion from literature than a personal work, and it seems like an attempt to negotiate a space for women, bringing in images of the sea and water to do it. One of my favorite pieces, "[from her]" starts:
[from her] the movement of place she and she is
woken with bird-light as and she has no buoy no
boat or song of this song a never knowing flitted
hollow early cast light shadow and streaming
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