The Rendering

Cody’s haunting and experimental second collection (after Borderland Apocrypha) draws on the legacy of the Dust Bowl to explore late capitalism and criticize the excesses of greed that characterize American history. Reframing and reimagining what is possible by looking at the past, these poems stand as a testament against what Cody lays out in the visual poem “Everywhere I sleep, I see Dust Bowl, 3.0” as “the new America”: “In the new America, document the atrocity, and sell the documentation,” and “In the new America, parasite the ancient.” Using photos from Dorothea Lange, inverted text, and QR codes, Cody pushes readers to expand their understanding of text and meaning. Through surprising juxtapositions, Cody portrays the challenge of daily life: “This is the new economy,” he writes, “and everyone can pull themselves up by their strapboots equally.” He then amends: “The people watching the webcast do not own boots or strapboots.” In this exciting work, history, imagination, criticism, and wonder share the page, modeling a new way of being in conversation with the world and a new way of reading such a conversation. (Apr.)