notanotherbookreview

Bamboo Dart Press consistently delivers the unexpected and brilliant in form and content. Of these delectable slender volumes by Peter Wortsman, the editors explain, "The poems are condensed and diverse, reflecting the mind of a poet and collage artist. Paintings, also created by the author, are interspersed among the poems."  For the first time, these books are offered internationally. Sets of four or two are available."Bamboo Dart Press explains the latest book in the series.   What We Leave Behind , Peter Wortsman’s fourth book of cut-ups, he lets the words run wild, in some cases, as in French poet Guillaume Apollinaire’s  Calligrames  (1918), letting words break ranks and dance on the page; in other cases, coupling word and image; and finally, succumbing to the lure of the visual in collages in which words play a subordinate role or disappear altogether. If, as this book’s first poem maintains, “we know each other from what we leave behind,” Wortsman write...

  Peter Wortsman is good company; a raconteur known for his short fiction, stage plays, and translations, such as KONUNDRUM, a translation of Kafka that made me laugh. In EPIPHANY OF A MIDDLE-AGED PILGRIM:  essays in lieu of a memoir (Pelekinesis) , he relates   the trepidation of being middle aged, as well as the mysteries of a life half lived. In ( A forword) , he ruminates:  "The only difference between then and now is an accumulation of doubt. But doubt need not necessarily be debilitating. I dedicate these musings to the defining punctuation mark of middle age: the semicolon, a veritable hallmark of uncertainty." Wortsman can make the prosaic terra incognito, such as  First Memory , where a drawbridge and a child's fear of containing "pipi" merge. In  Rough Cuts , there's humorous swagger about the removal of a skin cancer like "a kind of shoot-out at the O.K. Corral." He also creates strangely beautiful moments that are absurd. In Spirit Tre...

Flash fiction may be "still as slippery as footprints in wet cement", as Peter Wortsman writes in his foreward to FOOTPRINTS IN WET CEMENT (Pelekinesis) But in this impressive collection, he defines an ephemeral form with a wild variety of selections in an entertaining array of categories. There are "True Confessions," "True Encounters," "Wise Cracks," "Delphic Telegrams" and here-- "Stories on the Run." These are audacious stories which puncture our assumptions. Among my favorites are Girl on a Train  (Intelligence?), Let there be Lies   (Deity's shortcomings?)   I Am Not Myself  (Metaphysical identity theft?), After the Storm (Alive?) and many others. Here is a comment about an earlier non fiction work of Wortsman by a master of the short story and another on his fiction by a novelist. “The behavior of the people [in ‘Snapshots and Souvenirs’] was wonderfully human and moving—the sort of thing even the best ...

Peter Wortsman is good company; a raconteur known for his short fiction, stage plays, and translations, such as KONUNDRUM, a translation of Kafka that made me laugh. In EPIPHANY OF A MIDDLE-AGED PILGRIM: essays in lieu of a memoir , he relates   the trepidation of being middle aged, as well as the mysteries of a life half lived. In ( A forword) , he ruminates:  "The only difference between then and now is an accumulation of doubt. But doubt need not necessarily be debilitating. I dedicate these musings to the defining punctuation mark of middle age: the semicolon, a veritable hallmark of uncertainty." Wortsman can make the prosaic terra incognito, such as  First Memory , where a drawbridge and a child's fear of containing "pipi" merge. In  Rough Cuts , there's humorous swagger about the removal of a skin cancer like "a kind of shoot-out at the O.K. Corral." He also creates strangely beautiful moments that are absurd. In  Spirit Tree , a wild sapl...