Holly Anderson's THE NIGHT SHE SLEPT WITH A BEAR is like visiting an alien country you think you remember
THE NIGHT SHE SLEPT WITH A BEAR by Holly Anderson (Publication Studio, Portland, OR) is like visiting an alien country, you think you remember--from dreams you might have forgotten. It’s a novel-like fiction made up of mesostics and flash fiction. I checked Wikipedia: A mesostic is a poem or other typography such that a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text. It is similar to an acrostic , but with the vertical phrase intersecting the middle of the line, as opposed to beginning each new line. The practice of using index words to select pieces from a preexisting text was developed by Jackson Mac Low as "diastics". It was used extensively by the experimental composer John Cage (Walsh 2001). The Night She Slept with a Bear also comes with music by Chris Brokaw on itunes. And since the fiction resembles a musical composition, with themes repeated and intersected, it’s probab...