Hey, Marfa: Poems (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781555978198)

An extraordinary lyric and visual meditation on place, nature, and art rippling out from Marfa, Texas

Situated in the outreaches of southwest Texas, the town of Marfa has long been an oasis for artists, immigrants looking for work, and ranchers, while the ghosts of the indigenous and the borders between languages and nations are apparent everywhere. The poet and translator Jeffrey Yang experienced the vastness of desert, township, sky, and time itself as a profound clash of dislocation and familiarity. What does it mean to survive in a physical and metaphorical desert? How does a habitat long associated with wilderness and death become a center for nourishment and art?

Out of those experiences and questions, Yang has fashioned a fascinating, multifaceted work--an anti-travel guide, an anti-Western, a book of last words--that is a lyrical, anthropological investigation into history, culture, and extremity of place. Paintings and drawings of Marfa's landscapes and substations by the artist Rackstraw Downes intertwine with Yang's texts as mutual nodes and lines of energy. Hey, Marfa is a desert diary scaled to music that aspires to emit particles of light.

Author: Jeffrey Yang
ISBN-10: 1555978193
ISBN-13: 9781555978198
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Language: English
Published: 10/02/2018
Pages: 184
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 9.00h x 7.00w x 0.40d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 09/15/2018 pg. 58