Apostrophe (A Misfit Book)

Kennedy, Bill ; Wershler-Henry, Darren

ISBN 10: 155022722X / ISBN 13: 9781550227222

Published by ECW Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2006

About this Item

The book is inscribed and signed by both authors on the full title page. The book is near fine with very slight edge wear. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item. Seller Inventory # 015157

Bibliographic Details

Title: Apostrophe (A Misfit Book)

Publisher: ECW Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Publication Date: 2006

Binding: Soft cover

Condition: Near Fine

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

you are entirely happy with your poem / you are not happy then there is no charge and your deposit is returned / you are totally satisfied with the outcome / you are a man / you are a little confused / you are entirely happy with your poem / you are not happy then there is no charge and your deposit is returned / you are totally satisfied with the outcome ...

"Apostrophe" is:
a) a figure of speech in which a person, an abstract quality or a nonexistent entity is addressed as though present
b) a poem written in 1993 in which every sentence is an apostrophe
c) a program -- apostropheengine.ca -- based on the 1993 poem that hijacks search engines in order to extend the poem infinitely
d) a book of poetry written using the website

The answer: e) all of the above.

Bill Kennedy and Darren Wershler-Henry's Apostrophe contains all of these things, except the search engine (but you can visit that any time you like). Each line from the original poem has become the title of a new poem generated by the program's metonymic romp through the World Wide Web. Phrases rub against each other promiscuously; poems and readers alike come to their own conclusions. The results are by turns poignant, banal, offensive and hilarious, but always surprising and always unaffected. In other words, everything a book of contemporary poetry should be, and then some.

Poet and scholar Charles Bernstein has suggested that Apostrophe may be related to Freud's notion of the uncanny, a somnambulistic drift that appears aimless yet somehow always returns to "you." Apostrophe is an entirely new kind of poetry: neither stable nor unstable, sections come and go, but the overall shape of the poem remains vaguely familiar, like a trick of memory.

About the Author:

Bill Kennedy is the artistic director of the Scream Literary Festival, a poetry editor for Coach House Books, and an organizer of the Lexiconjury Reading Series. Darren Wershler-Henry teaches communication studies at Wilfrid Laurier University and is the author of "Free as in Speech and Beer" and "The Tapeworm Foundry." They both live in Toronto.