Whatever the reason—his insightful writing on Polish literature for the TLS, his poems, or the kind of courtesy he showed when we both tried to get into the same taxi on a cold Belgian morning 20 years ago—I've long admired Piotr Gwiazda. And now he's said some kind things about my book of poems and literary oddities, The Kafka Sutra. He's said them in the latest issue of The Chicago Review. His piece begins this way:
Robert Archambeau’s new book of poems The Kafka Sutra differs from
his previous book Home and Variations (2004) in the degree to which it
explores the possibilities of appropriation as a literary device. Appropriation,
moreover, becomes a hermeneutic tool in Archambeau’s hands. A poet and a
critic—the author of Laureates and Heretics (2010), The Poet Resigns (2013),
and the forthcoming Making Nothing Happen—he employs it to compose
his poems and to perform criticism on his textual sources. Entertaining and
intelligent, The Kafka Sutra shows Archambeau’s in-depth engagement with
this widespread, increasingly dominant poetic practice.
The title sequence at first quite implausibly grafts several of Kafka’s
enigmatic parables onto the subject matter of the Hindu classic Kama
Sutra. Describing it elsewhere as “one of the odder things [he’s] done,”
Archambeau promises, at least in theory, a merging of existential anxiety,
sensual fulfillment, and didactic intent. The result is indeed odd, but not
entirely foreign to anyone who has ever had the experience of reading
creatively more than one book at a time. The sequence is also disarmingly
playful and funny, as are the accompanying illustrations by Sarah Conner.
The full text is available here.
If you can't get enough commentary on The Kafka Sutra, have a look at Stu Watson's "Reflections on Recent Poetry" over at Queen Mob's Teahouse.
