Synopses & Reviews
Based on the experience of city life, The Vestiges moves across the uneven geography of the present, linking historical moments when quarters of cities were squatted, when social change boiled and the future was up for grabs. In the context of our precarious present, the poem The Vestiges,” around which the book is built, sets out to explore / what happens / to humans when they are reduced / to things by other humans.” In asking this question, The Vestiges” is a long poem engaged with modernist poems that move from the particularities of everyday life to enduring and unanswered political and cultural questions. Covering a wide terrain of research, the other serial poems in the book mine various texts, from the Craigslist auto parts” section to Jane Jacobs, from Marx to Marcuse, and from historical accounts of cities to contemporary real-estate promotions, in order to build up an eclectic atlas of this unstable moment. In terms of contemporary poetics, The Vestiges enters into dialogue with modernism, conceptual writing, and post-conceptual art.
Synopsis
Derksen's lava-paced comedic discharge positions itself in the mainstream of the saltier, sparring realms of political discourse, action, and advertising.
Synopsis
The Vestiges moves across geography of the present linking historical moments when quarters of cities were squatted, when social change boiled and the future was up for grabs. Covering a wide terrain of research, The Vestiges mine various texts, from craigslist auto parts” sections to Jane Jacobs, Marx to Marcuse, and from historical accounts of cities to real estate promotions.
Synopsis
The Vestiges moves across geography of the present, linking historical moments when quarters of cities were squatted, when social change boiled, and the future was up for grabs. Mining various texts, from historical accounts of cities to real-estate promotions, building an eclectic atlas of this unstable moment, The Vestiges engages modernism, conceptual writing, and post-conceptual art.
Jeff Derksen's poetry and critical writing on art, urbanism, and text have been published in Europe and North America. He currently teaches in the English department at Simon Fraser University. Derksen's Down Time won the 1991 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.
Synopsis
Political poems at the nexus of aesthetic discourse, globalization, and cultural studies.
About the Author
Jeff Derksen is a founding member of Vancouvers writer-run centre, the Kootenay School of Writing, and worked as an editor of Writing magazine. His work has been anthologized in East of Main and Verse: Postmodern Poetry and Language Writing. As an editor, Derksen also organized Disgust and Overdetermination: a poetics issue,” for Open Letter and Poetry and the Long Neoliberal Moment” for West Coast Line. Derksens poetry and critical writing on art, urbanism, and text have been published in Europe and North America. Formerly a research fellow at the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the City University of New York, he currently works in the English department at Simon Fraser University. He collaborates on visual art and research projects (focusing on urban issues) with the research collective Urban Subjects. Derksens Down Time won the 1991 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Award at the BC Book Prizes. A selection from Dwell Host Nation, Host Society” was nominated for inclusion in the anthology The Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative North American Poetry: 1993 (Sun and Moon Press).