Goodbye Letter - by Barney Kulok (Paperback)

About the Book

Concrete and permutational poems celebrating a serene atrophy of language, from the author of My Vibe. In his latest collection, Goodbye Letter, New York-based poet Jeremy Sigler (born 1968) deconstructs his very will to write, as he articulates, verbally and graphically, the implied obsolescence of language itself. The book feels less like a proper literary work (a book of poetry) and more like a manual for poetic survival. One poem reads like some sort of linguistic code that manages to murmur "it is what it is"; another is more classically "concrete," reflecting on typewriter and pattern poems of past centuries; and another consists of a complete signature of unmarked blank pages (they await being torn out and curled up into a loose tube) as was the 19th-century prototype for the stethoscope, but used this time to listen in on the poet's "speaking" heart. Sigler's newest collection may be seen as a field guide to a poet's last gasp.

Book Synopsis

Concrete and permutational poems celebrating a serene atrophy of language, from the author of My Vibe

In his latest collection, Goodbye Letter, New York-based poet Jeremy Sigler (born 1968) deconstructs his very will to write, as he articulates, verbally and graphically, the implied obsolescence of language itself. The book feels less like a proper literary work (a book of poetry) and more like a manual for poetic survival. One poem reads like some sort of linguistic code that manages to murmur "it is what it is"; another is more classically "concrete," reflecting on typewriter and pattern poems of past centuries; and another consists of a complete signature of unmarked blank pages (they await being torn out and curled up into a loose tube) as was the 19th-century prototype for the stethoscope, but used this time to listen in on the poet's "speaking" heart. Sigler's newest collection may be seen as a field guide to a poet's last gasp.

Review Quotes

[A] deconstruction of the author's will to write," let alone "the implied obsolescence of language itself."--Jeremy Sigler "Lit Hub"

It's fun to play the game of seeing the neutral alphabet reveal its hidden stories... and the same holds true for some of the sequences in Sigler's elegantly produced new book Goodbye Letter--a book of alphabets, glyphs, visual poems...and even musical scores....vintage witty [and] conceptual...--Marjorie Perloff "Tablet"