by KATHRYN COWLES
Some books of poems have to teach you how to read them because you can’t read them any of the old ways. Some books, in addition to being about whatever they’re about, are also about improvising a new way of saying, and therefore require a new way of reading. Some books are an investigation of methodology even as they plow ahead, and this is true of Shira Dentz’s how do i net thee (Salmon Press, 2018). So before I get into the specifics of Dentz’s original, weird methodology and language, I want to posit a theory of the why behind the how—the thinking I see going on behind the doing that manifests in the many luminous and strange visual elements in the book. But just to make sure you don’t lose interest amidst the theorizing process, here are some juicy bits of language, completely decontextualized, to hook you in, many of them employing this poet’s characteristically startling figurative language or her characteristically complicated alliterative twists and turns: continue reading here
