cover image Whelmed

Whelmed

Nicole Markotic. Coach House (Consortium, U.S. dist.; PGC, Canadian dist.) $17.95 trade paper (88p) ISBN 978-1-55245-326-1

Poet and novelist Markoti%C4%87's fifth poetry collection (following Bent at the Spine) is a glossary of manufactured definitions fashioned by detaching prefixes: compulsion is rendered pulsion, mischievous becomes chievous, and so on. With sections grouped under those excised prefixes, the book is playful and exuberant, each entry a prose poem unto itself. It is at its best when playing up form and presentation. In sections such as "Dis-," in which left-justified text is abandoned for variable, at times chaotic typesetting (appropriate for aster, combobulated, and traught, among others), and that effect is played up stronger still across the lone page of "Inter-." The sections "Ins & Outs" and "Pros & Cons" are identical in their presentation of dual columns--allowing different readings by scanning as columns or as collated text--up until the final, centered line of "Ins & Outs," which lends grounding to its liminality. "Or: Iterately," a long prose poem, anchors the book near its close. Markoti%C4%87 is even kind enough to provide a "Dexed" section at the end for selective re-reading. This work is recommended as a most excellent poetic dictionary. (May)