Simulacrum Press #25: ‘teksker’ by Franco Cortese

Franco Cortese’s ‘teksker‘, is an 8.5″x8.5″ chapbook of 18 pages. Produced in an edition of 45.

A chapbook of intense humanity, of the naked body, Franco Cortese’s teksker (a blend of the Proto-Indo-European root *teks- (“to weave; to fabricate; to make wicker or wattle fabric for mud-covered house walls”),  *sker-(1) (“to cut”) and *sker-(2) (“to turn, bend”), presents the reader with multilingual lipograms that eschew the use of all vowels entirely; line-unit anagrams and multilingual lipogramatic palindromes to name but a few of the constraints which Cortese wields.
If the tower of Babel was a frustration in its flood of languages, Cortese revels in that same noise, conducting it into raw beauty.

FROM TEKSKER:

a


mother wretched egg skin divination water stream wither a hole in the ground from which water can be obtained the hollow where a limb joins the trunk of an animal or tree wetnurse to believe that something will happen groping form of address to any man who is elder than you the altar stone where they hunt absent soil soul bruise wing wind to point wood old wives’ tale to egg on thought any altar for sacrifices elder brother a bad smell a collection of things associated with a person or place with love to breed well to fade what period of time half continual up to rim

aba aĉa āda afa aga aha aja aka ala ama ana apa aqa ara asa ata ava awa axa aya aza aza
aya axa awa ava ata asa ara aqa apa ana ama ala aka aja aha aga afã ada acá aba

ancestors rotten leather dust to discipline river time within a winglike bone a toxic by-product of improper or incomplete digestion in a direction analogous to up but along the additional axis added by the fourth dimension to devour elder brother blood scepter shadow hole hour to align on an axis palm birthmark a section of a village I to orientate distant opening a hunting deliberately interim uncle stolen to be old ruin to give birth to root cut river to lack effort to be as of fathers


‘teksker’, by Franco Cortese [Domestic/Canada]

Price includes shipping.

C$12.00

‘teksker’, by Franco Cortese [International]

Price includes shipping.

C$15.00

Simulacrum Press #24: ‘Repetitive Poems’ by Catherine Vidler

Repetitive Poems by Catherine Vidler is an elegant collection of 4 visual poems, each in full colour. Measuring 8.5 x 5.5″, Repetitive Poems is printed on card stock and bound with a single fastener in a limited edition of 45 chapbooks.

With Repetitive Poems, Catherine Vidler gives us her love of colour and meticulous forms, honing in on the effects of repetition applied to geometric forms. Repetition, of course, is an important poetic device, harkening back to the earliest oral traditions–repetition, yes–but repetitive? Repetitive connotes monotony, something these powerful crystalline logos refuse.

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Simulacrum Press #23: ‘Erth’ by Hart Broudy

Hart Broudy’s new collection, ‘Erth’ collects eight unbound 5×7″ pieces of visual/concrete poetry.

The conspicuously absent A in the title of Hart Broudy’s collection Erth gives a hint towards how the reader will encounter the alphabet in this series. While Earth can refer to both soil and planet, and certainly the textures within these pieces connect to such references, the Erth that is presented by Broudy delivers us to a different plain.

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Simulacrum Press #22: ‘Mumbles in Hollywood, California’, by Ben Robinson

Ben Robinson’s Mumbles in Hollywood, California is an 18 page, 5.5″ x 4.25″ pocket size chapbook. Saddle stitched.

Only recently has Ben Robinson begun to experiment with language from the depths of the internet. Mumbles in Hollywood, California extracts language from closed captioned interpretations of mumbles and gibberish within vapid YouTube videos, then re-frames and re-configures that material. As Bern Porter, master of founds, once wrote, “When you are dealing with waste, how do you avoid using crude material? So, you have to find the artistic value in crude” (Found Poems, by Bern Porter).

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Simulacrum Press #20: Cash Register Poems, by Edward Kulemin

Cash Register Poems

Edward Kulemin’s Cash Register Poems are presented in a simple 3×5.5″ single stapled bundle. 9 pages, full colour, printed on one side–replicating the common sight of end of the night receipts collected and stapled at our favourite stores.

This collection of asemic writing brings us into the heart of our purchasing centered lives where our movements leave a paper trail. Kulemin, having picked up this paper we accumulate, has reengaged these non-creative sites of record with invigorating graffiti–in this case the language of exasperation, and hope.

‘Cash Register Poems’ by Edward Kulemin (Domestic/Canada)

Price includes shipping.

C$8.00

‘Cash Register Poems’ by Edward Kulemin (International)

Price includes shipping.

C$9.50

Simulacrum Press #19: The Book of Ruth, by Amanda Earl

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Amanda Earl’s The Book of Ruth is an 8.5×8.5″ chapbook of 6 sheets of cardstock, printed on one side. With a simple cover and back of reflective gold coloured cardstock, the chapbook is bound with loose binder rings.

Amanda Earl’s series, The Vispo Bible, which has been appearing in serial through various small presses, is an ongoing project in which Earl, confronting the Holy Bible, reshapes the Old and New Testaments. Book by book, chapter by chapter, Earl presents a re-imaged feminist vision of these patriarchal texts by digitally sculpting each chapter into strikingly sensual visual poems. Here is the Book of Ruth.

‘The Book of Ruth’ by Amanda Earl (Domestic/Canada)

Price includes shipping.

C$13.50

‘The Book of Ruth’ by Amanda Earl (International)

Price includes shipping.

C$15.50

Simulacrum Press #18: ‘Confinement/Trespass’ by May Bery

Confinment-Trespass

May Bery’s work Confinement/Trespass has been published in an edition of 30 broadsides (18×24″). Following the signs, the work has been folded similarly to a road map.

Using a map of Richmond, Quebec as a starting point and canvas/page, May Bery has intervened in and interrupted the placid function of the map with her asemic paragraphs and bold borders. The paragraphs create isolated language zones which in turn echo Arabic, mathematical signs (the universal language), and noise. Confinement/Trespass does more than suggest the tie of language to identity and identity to belonging–it asserts the presence of peoples, the feeling of trespass and the fact of diversity.

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Simulacrum Press #17: ‘waterlight’ by andrew brenza

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waterlight by andrew brenza is a 17×6.5″ chapbook of 10 pages printed in an edition of 45 copies.

Coupling a more traditional lyric poem with lavish spreads of concrete poetry, andrew brenza has written a sequence, a poem, that delivers you back to the natural world, the surface of a body of water, where we can gaze down and lose ourselves in the light of language, or be engulfed by its noise. Landing somewhere between the serenity of isolated nature and the white noise of a TV screen, this is a reading experience of body in place.

Andrew Brenza’s waterlight is $20.00 (CAD) before shipping.

To purchase a copy of waterlight please contact Simulacrum editor Sacha Archer at simulacrumpress@gmail.com to determine shipping costs.

Simulacrum Press #16: ‘Fragmentum’ by derek beaulieu

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derek beaulieu’s Fragmentum is a 5×7″chapbook of 6 pages printed in an edition of 55 copies. A sturdy little chapbook printed entirely on cardstock and bound with a round head fastener for a slightly different navigational process.

In Fragmentum, beaulieu continues to probe the possibilities of his favorite medium, letraset. Moving away from his signature compositions consisting of recognizable letters which spread across the page like topographical landscapes, the pieces in Fragmentum embrace the broken, fragmented inevitability of the aging medium to present abstract forms where letter fragments combine to build a sculptural asemic language.

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