As We Know
Amaranth Borsuk and Andy Fitch. Subito (SPD, dist.), $16 trade paper (144p) ISBN 978-0-9906612-1-4
Authorship and embodiment are conceptually splayed open in this collaborative day journal, winner of the Subito Book Prize, as poets Borsuk (
Between Page and Screen) and Fitch (
Sixty Morning Talks) utilize the tools of erasure, a poetic subgenre in which text from an existent document is excised to create a new literary work. Rather than beginning from a published work, Borsuk manipulates Fitch’s summer diary, which includes entries from New York City, Berlin, and a family visit. The book renders Fitch’s quotidian musings in geeky-fun design, resembling a datebook with text scattered across the page; phrases are struck out or absent, but most congeal into stuttering sentences. This treatment maintains the curiosity of reading a stranger’s journal while turning the mundane into the bizarre beauty of “someone/ is going./ I’ll squeeze/ beneath the couch. There’s just enough room/ for us.” Beyond the textual play, there are greater questions at work, drawing from philosopher Roland Barthes’s call for a “corrected banality” in which the body enters the text and reaching an au courant reworking of gendered appropriation. “I’m starting to remember how I/ edit best: changing a lot of things a little bit,” an entry declares. They may be little edits, but they add up to an engrossing read.
(Dec.)