Publisher's Synopsis
Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. California Interest. Women's Studies. Art. LECTURE NOTES: A DURATION POEM IN TWELVE PARTS makes that subtle shift from seemingly raw appropriation to an act of art history right before our eyes so that the safe empiricism of seeing is believing is turned upside down, and believing (or culturally-driven perception) creates the scene.
Is this, then, a remaining possibility for poetry of place? If listening and note-taking are primary activities of learning, do LECTURE NOTES: A DURATION POEM IN TWELVE PARTS amplify quest as purpose of the lesson, the primal urge of mythology once again, or more perplexing, do they remove the purpose of the lesson and give us free-floating intellectual intent? Uncanny how we have here: hot property both classically mimetic and a semiological collation. Handwritten meets the ready-made in LECTURE NOTES: A DURATION POEM IN TWELVE PARTS. Pursuing questions Deborah Meadows raised in earlier books of poetry, LECTURE NOTES: A DURATION POEM IN TWELVE PARTS explore the politics of knowledge: its location, performance, ownership and authorial mastery. Deborah Meadows' LECTURE NOTES engages conceptual poetry but insists on creative editing. Meadows captures lectures in notes and peers into their materials through poetry. Her method contrasts conflict and cooperation to lure the reader into reconsidering the games of value systems without evaluating the games. Examples range from Mars Rovers to studies of farm workers' efficiency to detail the boundary between what Meadows calls 'the politics of knowledge.' Three components: the lecture's title, time and lecturer; one short comment on the lecture; and immediate perceptions shaped by abbreviation drawn by her notes taken during the lectures. Largely avoiding evaluation here: what it is is what you make of it. But as she says, when 'hunting with Cheney, ' the rules change mid-game and we are left with plastic humanity riddled with buckshot.--James Sherry
