Nine years after the spellbinding book-length poem I Don't Have Any Paper So Shut Up (Or, Social Romanticism), which has become recognized as a classic of Language Writing, Andrews returns to the large canvas with this phonetic translation/ recasting of Dante's Paradiso, the final part (often ignored for its darker cousin) of the Divine Comedy. As opposed to the high-octane "in your face" quality of Shut Up—where Situationism meets punk rock in a way Greil Marcus never imagined—Lip Service
is quieter, even "lyrical," perhaps showing for the first time Andrews's genuine facility with voice-based poetic meters such as those derived from Projective Verse or middle-period Pound. This isn't to say that Andrews is softening up; the act of writing, the praxis of living, cajolings of the social being, and sexual and gender politics intermix as wildly and unpredictably as ever. Each of the book's 100 cantos seems to spill down the page in one continuous, overlapping sentence, creating a compelling composite image of the hero/speaker in highly data-fied, micro-moments. "When did imaginary curry its whole," Andrews asks in "Primum Mobile 9"; this long poem, right down to its detourned relationship to its esteemed 14th century predecessor, demands to know what sort of utopian vision is reconcilable with a globalized capitalist culture, one that wants the self to be alienated from being whole within society and uses language as one of its main forces of estrangement. This incredible long work—a complete lexicon of communication games, queries, contents, variables, and deceptions in lush distinctive prosody—suggests the poem as one reply. (July 4)
Forecast:Andrews published several shorter books of poems and a collection of criticism (
Paradise & Method) during the '90s, and remains a primary influence on experimental poetry and poetics.
Shut Upis the book of his most often assigned on campus; look for this beautifully produced volume to be brandished at MLA sessions and readings alike.
