Carla Seipp Reports On Ariana Reines’ Mercury

Mercury-jacket

Dear Diane and Shaded Viewers,

Mercury is the third book of poetry by the exceptional Ariana Reines. A continuation of her beautifully realist style of poetry, the collection of long poems explores the themes of commercial cinema, the nation-state, currency, alchemy and internet porn.

Reines' debut body of work, The Cow, won her the Alberta Prize in 2006 thanks to its anarchic construction of bluntness, fragility, emotionality and poignancy. Equally, her sophomore book Coeur De Lion, written as a narrative-length love poem, manages to lead poetry into something more than a simple rhyming or collection of verses, instead shining a new light on the often banal and cliched elements of everyday culture. Although the autobiographical elements become evident in its rawness and vulnerability, there is always an underlying element of critical comment embedded in her work.


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To call Reines a poet would be oversimplifying. The Massachusettes native has written the Obie-winning play Telephone, based on the philosophical book The Telephone Book by Avital Ronnel and presented a spin-off of the play, Miss St.'s Hieroglyphical Suffering, at the Guggenheim Museum in 2009. The multi-talented artist has also opened for experimental band Psychic TV and is currently on a book tour across North America and the UK.

Regardless of whether the experience is in person or on paper, the work of Ariana Reines is too much of an artistic rarity to be missed.

http://arianareines.tumblr.com/

http://www.fenceportal.org/

Later,

Carla

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