June takes up the whirlpooling, epic project of Brenner’s prizewinning debut The Stupefying Flashbulbs. Narrative emerges despite the “pleasurable obstacles” (as one reviewer called them) of these poems, which, in hallucinatory, luminous, yet spare verbiage trace the obscure appearances of “perfumed people,” pioneers all–including one Xi An, a “guardian of paradise”–as they weather a flood, butchery, and “blistering synthesis.”
2018-08-04