{"id":2,"date":"2018-10-16T14:20:32","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T14:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp\/wp481\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2023-01-07T08:08:56","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T08:08:56","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.stephandelbos.com\/index.php\/poetry\/sample-page\/","title":{"rendered":"Light Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n(buy the book)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“The titles of the minimalist poems appear at the bottom of the page; it means a slowed-down knowing and an after-the-fact awareness…\u00a0a playful inversion. Delbos draws inspiration from Chopin, Philip Glass, V\u00e1clav Havel, and pulls from disparate influences and reference points, from the Sex Pistols to Homer to Micro Machines. The result is an active, acrobatic collection.”<\/span>
\n\u2014Nina MacLaughlin, The Boston Globe<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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BlazeVOX, 2019 \/ 102 pages \/ $16<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Delbos manages a clever feat with his new collection\u2014 he crafts an easily accessible opening with self-aware poems that lure the reader in and gain their trust for the more challenging poems that follow… He approaches his craft without any semblance of fear, and seems to expect that same thing of his readers. How refreshing.”
\n\u2014Kenneth J. Pruitt, Rain Taxi<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“Delbos’ language is so gorgeous… But the main feature of this collection is its windows that let in the light of illumination, the heat of passion, and the movement of language through its pages that will motivate poets to write, and readers to read. All with a bit of humor thrown in.”
\n\u2014Terry Lucas, The Widening Spell<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“Light Reading<\/em>, operates, in a sense, as a verbal museum, where intellectual artefacts from various epochs and cultures are exposed in a variegated pattern that celebrates life and creativity.”
\n\u2014Anton Romanenko, Dispatches from the Poetry Wars<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“In reading this collection I had the feeling that these poems, these condensed, precise evocations of the possibilities\u2014and limitations of language\u2014seemed to be coming into being on the page, speaking to ghosts, alluding to the unutterable, to the moment captured in the empty spaces. Unconfined, open-ended and illuminating, Light Reading<\/em> is a work that leaves plenty of room for exploration. And enjoyment.”
\n\u2014Joseph Schreiber, roughghosts<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The poems in Light Reading<\/em> interrupt silence with whispers, occasional shouts, erasures\u2019 spaces. Delbos\u2019 lines resonate with startling spontaneity and sprezzatura. A master minimalist, he writes with risible daring and poignance. His mind\u2019s at poetic play throughout these refreshing poems, leaping with erudition, oneiric strangeness, and Czech allusions that would charm Kafka. \u201cYour brain is a beehive\u201d and \u201choney tastes like blood,\u201d he writes in \u201cBagatelle for Gy\u00f6rgy Ligeti, Eternal Light & Honeycomb.\u201d I love the buzz and blood of this book.
\n\u2014Chard deNiord<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fragmentary, elliptical, and aphoristic, Stephan Delbos\u2019 lyrics resonate beyond the page. As he notes, \u201clanguage \/ outlives us.\u201d If American poet Bill Knott whispers below these cool surfaces, so too do Celan and Ritsos, allowing Delbos the \u201cGhost notes\u201d of his interior yet cosmopolitan voice. There\u2019s warmth too (\u201chere \/ hang \/ your \/ shells \/ shadows \/ shame\u201d) and playfulness (\u201cI carry music like Samson \/ in my beard and later \/ on my Samsung\u201d). Light Reading<\/em>, as the title suggests, is breezy and prophetic, mirror and depth, and pleasurably \u201cdrunk on wordscotch.\u201d
\n\u2014Michael Waters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lorine Niedecker called her work a \u201ccondensery,\u201d and the term is equally appropriate to the poetry of Stephan Delbos in his brilliant Light Reading<\/em>. His minimalist pieces are charged with rare wit and intelligence, his bagatelles are as poised and surprising as those of Bartok, and his tongue-in-teach suggestions for his fellow poets turn out, ironically, to be wise advice despite themselves (\u201cA poem controlled by someone else \/ A someone who doesn\u2019t speak your language\u201d). According to Delbos, \u201cWhat is worth believing \/ is impossible \/ to believe \/ and really only \/ that will save you\u2026\u201d And you better believe it.
\n\u2014Norman Finkelstein<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a fascinating, disquieting book whose ghostly narratives emerge from tenuous connections between statements, between words, as well as between words and the page\u2019s negative space. Ineluctably conditioned by the very writing of them, histories of walks along Prague streets, of places where the poet eats or drinks, have become forms of desire. Light Reading<\/em>\u2019s opening line, \u201cwhat you cried when you came from the womb is your name,\u201d reveals an intuition of experience that constitutes a radical departure from In Memory of Fire<\/em>, the prior collection by Stephan Delbos. Midway through the new volume the equally laconic \u201cWhy Writing\u201d makes this simple observation: \u201cEven our names are words.\u201d To be human is to be suffused by language. And to write is the most human act, which brings us to fullness. Naming allows us to belong, yet the poet, the artist, who makes marks in the world fashions our existential paradox; inscription throws the self into flux. Delbos has crafted a poetry of ideas. His marvelously lyrical insouciance both destabilizes and heroicizes our belief in the poet\u2019s vocation.
\n\u2014Burt Kimmelman<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(buy the book) “The titles of the minimalist poems appear at the bottom of the page; it means a slowed-down knowing and an after-the-fact awareness…\u00a0a playful inversion. Delbos draws inspiration from Chopin, Philip Glass, V\u00e1clav Havel, and pulls from disparate influences and reference points, from the Sex Pistols to Homer to Micro Machines. The result … Continue reading Light Reading<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":316,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t