Interstices

Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Poems are in the form of letters and corresponding ledgers. "Poetry. For those of us who fell in love with the putative end of DuPlessis's lifework, Drafts--'Volta! Volta!'--it's a serious pleasure to discover that it has indeed taken a turn, the serial poem plumbing its manifold interstices for a way to 'unbegin,' and in so doing discovering new 'ways of exceeding itself / and of losing itself / in strings of letters.' INTERSTICES, however, also begins the work of turning back to look upon a life spent in letters, and what I love most about this brave, witty book is that it's ultimately about being--in time, in language, in relation--a condition by nature contingent, partial, and mortal. 'Not to so easy to answer what it's like to be in time,' it admits, 'counting up / the little bits of self and / understanding.' But what makes this book so miraculous and wise is that its ledgers...