SEVEN PAGES MISSING, VOLUME II: Previously Uncollected Texts 1968–2000

The second volume of Canadian poet and theorist McCaffery's "selected texts" is every bit as densely various as the first (published in 2000 by Toronto's Coach House) and follows hot on the heels of his second major critical work, Prior to Meaning: The Protosemantic and Poetics. Of the five sections here, the visual and sound works—many of them playful, such as "ceci n'est pas un pape" or "Where 'worm' equals Mozart and 'leopard' equals Coltrane, play 'iguana' "—are spaciously laid out and provide a perfect point of entry into McCaffery's oeuvre. The section of extracts from longer verse is, while undoubtedly more serious, ultimately less rewarding, but high points from a wonderful section of translations include The Communist Manifesto in Yorkshire dialect ("wiv nowt ter looiz burruz ancuffs un thuv gorraltbluddy worldter win"), a Presbyterian version of Basho ("And a simple frog it was we crucified/ i say unto you that day/ in the province of Basho yea and verily.") and a quite remarkable hybrid of literature and medical science entitled "Baker Transformation," which is as moving as it is disruptive. The ranginess of McCaffery's intellect and the precision of his writing—especially his prose—is amply displayed in the book's final section. To single out "Apropriopriapus," a perfectly judged "essay" on Gertrude Stein in the manner of a Burroughsian cut-up ("we felt the earth move paris over her idiom tables") is to mention only one of many dizzily genre-defying pieces contained here. While the more arid of McCaffery's texts may come off more as exercises than poems, it is impossible to ignore the exuberant inventiveness at play in the majority of his work. (Sept. 30)