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| codeswitching a book of poetry by Melissa R. Benham from Subday Press with art by Stacy Elaine Dacheux book layout & design by Kyle Kaufman "The divinatory act, in Melissa Benham's work, is a movement, as I track it, into the "dangerous visible." Gestures dissolve into blue"/"flocking"/ "emptiness" before they are fully completed or designated as an activity of grammar or subject: "like you in a place/ a strategic line falters in travel." These are poems written at a location that is constantly disappearing, or burning up. With forensic longing, Melissa Benham takes us looking for the blazing scraps of paper, the souvenirs, the "1000 scars" and elaborate metaphors that soak memory and love into the charged air." -Bhanu Kapil |
| to read excerpts: |
| M E L I S S A R. B E N H A M |
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| "In Codeswitching, Melissa Benham reinvents the definition of this linguistic phenomenon by allowing it to inhabit the inner and very individual language of the poet in a space between "fractured" thoughts and emotions, perception and experience. What is created in the severed syntax of her poems are objects cut from their usual place of habitation, floating in the median where they call to be mistranslated and envisioned anew each time they are read, finally forming a language which articulates human experience in a way that could never be expressed in a straight-forward telling."
-Mara Leigh Simmons |
| to order codeswitching: use the PAYPAL button to the right or send a check payable to "summer rodman" & send it to: Subday Press c/o Summer Rodman PO BOX 547896 Orlando, FL 32854 www.subdaypress.org copies are $9 +$2.55 S/H ISBN 0-9743723-2-3 |
| all drawings copyright 2006 Stacy Elaine Dacheux : : all text copyright 2006 Melissa R. Benham |