{"product_id":"congotronic-shane-book-9781609383077","title":"Congotronic","description":"At once original, strange, funny, and unnerving, Shane Book's \u003ci\u003eCongotronic\u003c\/i\u003e takes the reader into unstable territory, where multiple layers of voice, diction, and music collide. Some of these poems have the sparse directness of a kind of bleak prayer; others mingle the earthbound rhythms of hip-hop with the will-to-transcendence of high Romanticism. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Harnessing techniques of the cinematic and audio arts, Book's poems splice, sample, collage, and jump-cut language from an array of sources, including slave narratives, Western philosophy, hip hop lyrics, and the diaries of plantation owners. In fusing disparate texts, each poem in this collection attempts to create a community in language. Thus, at its core, the project is utopic--or more precisely, to borrow from Duke Ellington--the project is \"blutopic.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The book's anchoring series contains an apocryphal narrative grounded in the journey of the Middle Passage and an older mythic history from the West African epic of Sundiata. Here elements of Afrofuturism coagulate with an R\u0026amp;B grin as social forces challenge a sense of personhood, prompting free-jazz inflected conversations between the pieces of a shattered, polyvocal self. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Here is a world poet of the Sonic Global South sheathed in a Northern Hemispheric glow suit, high \"on Coltrane, on Zeus\" but also on the old and new schools of Descartes, M.I.A., Cecil Taylor, Gilbert Ryle, Freud, and Jay Z, among others--or as one poem puts it, the \"aural truths.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Shane Book\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1609383079\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781609383077\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Iowa Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/01\/2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 80\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.25lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.90h x 4.90w x 0.30d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/15\/2014 pg. 14","brand":"Shane Book","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48065748926719,"sku":"9781609383077","price":18.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_6e11eca0-b4d2-4cd2-a68c-e3d2f938ab30.jpg?v=1768677012","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/congotronic-shane-book-9781609383077","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}