Written 1976-2013
Published September 2014
728 pp
£20.00
ISBN: 978-0957182738
About the book
Inman is the most radical writer of the last forty years, and the publication of Written: 1976-2013 marks a watershed in the history of American poetry. As a member of the loosely affiliated Language poets—arguably the most adventurous group of writers in the second half of the twentieth century—Inman brings critique down into the very letters, words, and phrases that make up the language itself, creating in the process some of the most inventive forms of verse in the history of the art. Having his collected works available in a single volume is a gift for readers of experimental writing, scholars of contemporary poetry, and lovers of serious literature.
About the author
P. Inman is an American poet who was born in 1947 and raised on Long Island. He is a graduate of Georgetown University . Since 1980 he has worked at the Library of Congress , where he has been a union activist for Local 2910 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees AFSCME. His work has appeared in magazines and anthologies including: In the American Tree (edited by Ron Silliman) and From the Other Side of the Century. His collections include Platin (1979), ocker (1982), Red Shift(1988), Criss Cross (1994), Vel (1995), at. least (1999), and Ad Finitum (2008). He resides in Maryland with the poet Tina Darragh.
Endorsements
“The collected P. Inman! It’s about time—and a lot of other words—many of which have never been seen or heard before. Inman’s half-century project of the complete dérèglement de tous la langue marks one of the endpoints of the great arc of American poetry, where the bow bends all the way to touch the ground. You’ll find a pot of linguistic gold there: Written is writing written at the limits of written writing. Accompanied by Craig Dworkin’s fantastic introductory essay, this book is sure to become a classic in the ongoing history of the avant-garde.” Michael Golston
“P. Inman’s poetry resembles a folded and pleated cloth or skin that has been dipped in printer’s ink then dragged across impacted, boulder-strewn terrain—a landscape bounded to the north by new music (that area where jazz and contemporary classical meet), to the east by Abstract Expressionism (long before the money showed up), to the south by economic and social systems, and to the west by family and literary relations. It is work that has long fulfilled a particular need better than any other, and with the bulk of what Inman has written to date now collected in these pages, we can more easily see how his constancy of focus over decades has yielded such variously astonishing results. One wonders how this admirably egoless writing manages to be so densely peopled; rarely has the thickness of words been milled to such denominated fineness.” Miles Champion
“If Inman’s words are fascinating for their tonal possibilities—and are often just as exciting as musical gestures—there is a feeling that they exist always on the verge of rational meaning.” Douglas Messerli
Reviews
Steve Dickison in Galatea Resurrects
Billy Mills at Elliptical Movements
Ian Dreiblatt in Bomb Magazine
Ryan Gato in Tripwire
Sample
Written Sample
Introduction Sample by Craig Dworkin
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