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Book Cover for: In the Garden of the Bridehouse, J. Michael Martinez

In the Garden of the Bridehouse

J. Michael Martinez

Through lyrical procedures of self-immolation, this brave new collection by J. Michael Martinez interrogates the sundry roles language, myth, and sexuality play for the self and the other in the recoverable and irrecoverable past. Parallel to his award-winning first collection Heredities, J. Michael Martinez pushes the boundaries of poetic form, wedding historically oppositional lyrical traditions to deliver a collection unlike any other.

Turning the page into a visual field, as in the deconstructed musical score telling the tale of La Llorona, In the Garden of the Bridehouse questions the line between visual art and poetry. The work employs the vernacular, the stylized language of theory, and the blank canvas of the page in its exploration of the known and unknowable.

Throughout the work, Martinez paradoxically exercises both a lyrical minimalism and a baroque poetic, uniting Mesoamerican preconquest imaginary with the sensuality of the Biblical Song of Songs, cultivating a lyrical space wherein contrasting potentials are--as one--realized in their shared promise.

Book Details

  • Publisher: University of Arizona Press
  • Publish Date: Sep 25th, 2014
  • Pages: 80
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - 0002
  • Dimensions: 8.90in - 5.80in - 0.20in - 0.30lb
  • EAN: 9780816530892
  • Categories: American - Hispanic & Latino

About the Author

J. Michael Martinez is the author of Heredities, his first collection of poetry, which was awarded the Academy of American Poets' Walt Whitman Award. He lives in Denver.

Praise for this book

"Martinez offers intimate, introspective looks inside his speakers while simultaneously casting a critical eye across culture, history, and identity politics. Truly a collection to be digested in full measure."--Booklist

"Poems scatter across the page in starburst shape, with fragments often disconnected spatially and syntactically. Pay attention, though, and you'll hear the music (some of the poems are even musical scores) and see the glowing, tactile beauty in these intensive pieces."--Library Journal