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list price: $15.95
edition:Paperback
category: Poetry
published: Feb 2006
ISBN:9780889225398
publisher: Talonbooks

fractal economies

by Derek Beaulieu

tagged: canadian
Description

In fractal economies, derek beaulieu pushes the limits of poetry and poetics by grinding language through the mill of photocopiers, found material, collage, printmaking, frottage and Letraset—creating a new language for the genre. These “fractal economies,” or series of increasingly complex replications of forms through the repeated application of a fixed set of rules, challenge the status quo of poetry and of the politics of language itself, which is, with respect to any human script yet deciphered, capitalist in its very origin. Letters are freed from their “normal” behaviour, machines are let loose to create on their own and the borders between poetry and artwork are blurred. In an intriguing and well-argued afterword, beaulieu also theorizes ways that concrete poetry—poetry that deals with language in a physical, material way—can move forward into the twenty-first century beyond the limitations of the page, the author and even the poem itself.

About the Author

Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty-five collections of poetry, prose, and criticism. His most recent volume of fiction, a, A Novel, was published by France’s Jean Boîte Editions, his most recent volume of poetry, Surface Tension, is his third from Coach House Books. Beaulieu has exhibited his visual work across Canada, the United States, and Europe and has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students. Derek Beaulieu is the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Banff’s 2022-2024 Poet Laureate.

Contributor Notes

derek beaulieu
Author of four books of poetry and two volumes of conceptual fiction, derek beaulieu’s work is consistently praised as some of the most radical and challenging contemporary Canadian writing. beaulieu’s fractal economies (Talonbooks, 2006) includes a cogent and widely-discussed argument for poetry which works beyond conventional meaning-making, pushing the boundaries of syntax into graphic design, gesture and collaboration.

Editorial Reviews

“Represents[s] truly the best of beaulieu’s poetic practice.”
Prairie Fire Review of Books


“Never read a book of concrete poetry before? This might be the one to hook you.”
FFWD

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