The Speak Angel Series (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781737803621)

The Speak Angel Series is composed of six full-length books in various forms but towards the achievement of a unifying epic narrative in which the poet, as character, leads all the souls of all the living and dead to a point zero where the remaking of the cosmos can be performed. As this is being done, the official public world takes place in Paris, France and the United States, and new "characters" are incorporated from the news and from the poet's life. The forms include a long-line narrative broken by lyric stand-alones, an operatic form designed to make the reader chant if reading aloud, two spiritual sequels to the author's book The Descent of Alette, written in the same stanzaic form, a book that is simply a collection of different kinds of poems, a book formed by literary collaging, and a final, long book that is the volume's ultimate culmination. The Speak Angel Series took years to accomplish but is finally ready; it is meant to be read for plot, pleasure, musical experience, wisdom and truth. Why not? The books present something like a cosmology in the philosophical sense, a reading of existence and of death. The dead are very close-by and available in the series, which is a work of stunning ambition.

Author: Alice Notley
ISBN-10: 1737803623
ISBN-13: 9781737803621
Publisher: Fonograf Editions
Language: English
Published: 02/21/2023
Pages: 641
Format: Paperback
Weight: 2.82lbs
Size: 9.13h x 7.01w x 1.73d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/20/2023