Ted Greenwald’s 30th book consists of 79 72-line poems, each with his trademark recombinatory drop-stitch weave. As a basic pattern, which is varied, each poem’s 26 demotic lines is repeated in 9 interlinked free triolets (ABCACDAB-DEFDFGDE). In Your Dreams is almost, then is, hard to say, In Your Dreams is almost, hard to say, autopoiesis, In Your Dreams is almost, then is, autopoiesis, flickering fugal strobe of the everyday, or sublime sonic moiré, autopoiesis, or sublime sonic moiré, spoken and shimmering, autopoiesis, flickering fugal strobe of the everyday.
—Charles Bernstein
In your dreams, text messages are cinematic connectives; in the rushes of Ted Greenwald’s talking pictures, a spoken grammar steps out of the voice and into language proper, only to find that the comma is an extra (Natalie Wood plays the waitress’s pad; Laurence Harvey, the double helix). Shots and cuts are balanced for maximum clarity and accommodation. What happens next is in the present tense.
—Miles Champion
As the centered layout replicates a spinal column or double helix of symmetrical verticality that allows the eye to scan rapidly down through each stack of lines, the use of interwoven repetition creates an echoic choral effect that builds-in rhythmic intensity: In Your Dreams. Two steps forward, one step back, these improvised speeches for an in-town head reverberate with second, third and fourth takes that take out loans on short-term memory only to break the bank of thought-heard voices and walk right through the door in a hum.
—Kit Robinson
The poems to be found in this extraordinary book exert obsessive fascination, and they do so on numerous fronts. The title, In Your Dreams, suggests that this is a dream book; it is important to note, however, that the dreams are not materials of Ted Greenwald’s inward musings. They are propelled outward, rather, to “your dreams,” which is to say ours—we of the shared, not-so-nice realities of the contemporary world. It is also important to note the affective import of the title: it is witty and slightly melancholy and caustic and confrontational. The poems reflect not some dreamy inner consciousness but on-going social processes with their intricate (and some might say relentless) patterns. Patterning is perceptible in the structure of the poems, and that is a manifest source of the technical fascination they yield. Indeed, Greenwald has produced a masterpiece of the American variable foot. But the emotional power of this utterly compelling book emerges from the inter-personal conditions that give the poems their thrust. The poems speak in and out of love, irritation, tension, wry amiability, nervous and unnerving intimacy; they represent daily interplay, quotidian perseverations; they resonate with comic intensity and the blues. That’s it: they are beautiful and very bluesy.
—Lyn Hejinian
Design: Cuneiform
Publisher: BlazeVox
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN-10: 193428954X
ISBN-13: 978-1934289549
ISBN-10: 193428954X
ISBN-13: 978-1934289549
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
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