{"id":6229,"date":"2011-04-16T07:37:59","date_gmt":"2011-04-16T11:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=6229"},"modified":"2011-04-15T07:43:04","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T11:43:04","slug":"review-of-ken-irby%e2%80%99s-collected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/review-of-ken-irby%e2%80%99s-collected\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Ken Irby\u2019s Collected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Interesting\u00a0review of Ken Irby&#8217;s Collected <em>The Intent On<\/em> on a blog I hadn&#8217;t known of til now. Opening gambit below; read the full piece <a href=\"http:\/\/coldfrontmag.com\/reviews\/the-intent-on-collected-poems-1962-2006\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>by Kenneth Irby<\/strong><br \/>\nNorth Atlantic Books 2009<br \/>\nReviewed by Mike McDonough<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"8_5\" data-src=\"http:\/\/coldfrontmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/8_5.gif\" alt=\"8_5\" width=\"200\" height=\"33\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 200px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 200\/33;\" \/><\/p>\n<h5>\u201cthe back \/ calm pasture of the mind\u201d<\/h5>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/coldfrontmag.com\/reviews\/the-intent-on-collected-poems-1962-2006\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"irby cover\" data-src=\"http:\/\/coldfrontmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/irby-cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"79\" height=\"108\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 79px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 79\/108;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In 2009,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.northatlanticbooks.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">North Atlantic Books<\/a> published a handsome book finally gathering the work of Kenneth Irby, one of Charles Olson\u2019s lesser known disciples, who has labored in small press obscurity since the early \u201860\u2019s. Irby fans (including myself) have been waiting for a comprehensive collection since Station Hill Press put out\u00a0<em>Call Steps<\/em> in 1991. My first reaction was too much like the blurbs on the back, making me feel like, as Stephen King put it in the self-effacing preface to his book on writing, \u201ca literary gasbag or a transcendental asshole.\u201d But any review of Irby should emphasize that this work is not necessarily easy to approach.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As a title for his collected works,\u00a0<em>The Intent On<\/em> is unpromising and not as representative as previous headings such as\u00a0<em>Orexis<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Catalpa<\/em>, or\u00a0<em>Relation<\/em> might be, but it does make the point that Irby is writing in the space \u201cafter I,\u201d and suggests two of his main influences, Louis Zukofsky and Ed Dorn, who might be overlooked beneath Olson\u2019s looming presence. The title also points towards his increasing attention to tracking the atomic particles of language. I offer the following quote as an example of Irby\u2019s pacing and form:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>or all the high school years again, unslept, reviewing the annual faces over and over<br \/>\ntill they run green in the movies after the eyes are closed<br \/>\nand still as distant as they were in person<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span> the society of ordinary<br \/>\nhigh school days, never left, will it?<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interesting\u00a0review of Ken Irby&#8217;s Collected The Intent On on a blog I hadn&#8217;t known of til now. Opening gambit below; read the full piece here: &nbsp; by Kenneth Irby North Atlantic Books 2009 Reviewed&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,36,91],"tags":[977,978],"class_list":["post-6229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-criticism","category-poetry","tag-ken-irby","tag-mike-mcdonough"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6229"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6233,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229\/revisions\/6233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}