erica kaufman
censory impulse
Heretical Texts
Factory School, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-60001-063-7
(out of print)
censory impulse is a book length excavation of the body (both physical and psychological) disrupted. These poems take their calling from the relationship between the neurological and the political, the digestive and the subjective, the gendered and the cyborg. Kaufman's verse is located somewhere between Oliver Sacks, Donna Haraway, & Chris Hables Gray--only in place of scientific hypotheses we see line breaks, metaphorical projections, and "labyrinth authority."
As I get older I know only two things: the starless chaos within (Kafka) and the random stars above (Proust). No moral center and thus no margin, no moral order outside or in and thus no disorder. In the poetry of erica kaufman, we seem to hear the music of this random landscape with no teleology but Darwin Her humor is full of horror at snobbism and injustice and the acceptance of the most comical social sketch. Her poems are by an adult woman who loves love without constraints, and no less believes that language is for a subversive voice, not simple structures. Who knows better that poetry is still woman in revolt? David Shapiro
reviews
"Coming to terms with absence" by Brian Mornar (Jacket2)
Poetry Picks: Best Books of 2009 (Bob Holman for about.com)