Kimberly Lyons
Photothérapique
Jointly published with Katalanché Press
$7.50 ppd. (sold out)
BIO:
Kim Lyons is the author of Abracadabra (Granary Books) and Saline (Instance Press) as well as numerous chapbooks. She lives in Brooklyn where she works as a psychiatric social worker.
EXCERPT from "In Madras":
In Madras, a storm of notes like ants
or thick dust subtracts
from the body in which
the sheen of a gluey blue bubble
languidly attached to a stem of white
simultaneously inflates and sags,
as does a thrown out purple sofa in the rain
next to a red tin for Chinese cookies & yellow rubber sandals.
The mighty peony, degraded, endures
as a link to be grasped like the smell
of the pipe’s exhalation at a birthday party
not forgotten exactly—just less attended to
in the clamor of oils and collision of shadows
on Maxwell Street. The panic of the bull,
oily and black as time
focused on the red whirl
of the future’s cascade
that collapses
in the private gauze of tears
swimming across the gaze
in an afternoon’s sandstorm light.
REVIEWS:
Review reprinted from The Brooklyn Rail, July, 2008 by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright:
Walking around in Kimberly Lyons’s poems, one feels like Eugene Atget, who Berenice Abbot called "a Balzac of the camera." You capture the forward moment and the look back at each stage. You know where you are and what time it is—the stuff in between is lyric and metaphoric: "4pm… / I look to the tunnels/ the scuffs, the sparkle of messed up/ tinsel, the broken gold star/ found on Henry Street…"
The book’s title, Photothérapique, implies that visual cataloging is a way of seeing what you’re doing and why. "Black Swallowtail" evokes a silken embroidery of the city, "a scarf all the way to Delancey Street/ to the Village, to Queens." Always open to her surroundings, Lyons weaves in details to fashion a texture where the seams happily show. Green, white, blue, orange—colors jack up the poem. Two boys pass by: "Charisma says one…and boots of asskicking."
Another poem, "No More Samovars," is a fabulous list of found objects. It’s laden with cabinets, pamphlets, books, and "Many kittenish, black, fluffy sweaters/ all size 8."
Turning her attention inward, the author strikes a tender note. After reading Breton and Soupault, she acknowledges "a feeling for the inwardness…" and a longing for "Convergence." "On a bicycle/ after the dentist," vulnerable and independent, Lyons magnifies the lens."
LINK to review at Jack Kimball's blog
LINKS:
LINK to Katalanché Press website
Kim Lyons is the author of Abracadabra (Granary Books) and Saline (Instance Press) as well as numerous chapbooks. She lives in Brooklyn where she works as a psychiatric social worker.
EXCERPT from "In Madras":
In Madras, a storm of notes like ants
or thick dust subtracts
from the body in which
the sheen of a gluey blue bubble
languidly attached to a stem of white
simultaneously inflates and sags,
as does a thrown out purple sofa in the rain
next to a red tin for Chinese cookies & yellow rubber sandals.
The mighty peony, degraded, endures
as a link to be grasped like the smell
of the pipe’s exhalation at a birthday party
not forgotten exactly—just less attended to
in the clamor of oils and collision of shadows
on Maxwell Street. The panic of the bull,
oily and black as time
focused on the red whirl
of the future’s cascade
that collapses
in the private gauze of tears
swimming across the gaze
in an afternoon’s sandstorm light.
REVIEWS:
Review reprinted from The Brooklyn Rail, July, 2008 by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright:
Walking around in Kimberly Lyons’s poems, one feels like Eugene Atget, who Berenice Abbot called "a Balzac of the camera." You capture the forward moment and the look back at each stage. You know where you are and what time it is—the stuff in between is lyric and metaphoric: "4pm… / I look to the tunnels/ the scuffs, the sparkle of messed up/ tinsel, the broken gold star/ found on Henry Street…"
The book’s title, Photothérapique, implies that visual cataloging is a way of seeing what you’re doing and why. "Black Swallowtail" evokes a silken embroidery of the city, "a scarf all the way to Delancey Street/ to the Village, to Queens." Always open to her surroundings, Lyons weaves in details to fashion a texture where the seams happily show. Green, white, blue, orange—colors jack up the poem. Two boys pass by: "Charisma says one…and boots of asskicking."
Another poem, "No More Samovars," is a fabulous list of found objects. It’s laden with cabinets, pamphlets, books, and "Many kittenish, black, fluffy sweaters/ all size 8."
Turning her attention inward, the author strikes a tender note. After reading Breton and Soupault, she acknowledges "a feeling for the inwardness…" and a longing for "Convergence." "On a bicycle/ after the dentist," vulnerable and independent, Lyons magnifies the lens."
LINK to review at Jack Kimball's blog
LINKS:
LINK to Katalanché Press website