BOOKSELLER INFORMATION

Publication Date: 01-Oct-03 | ISBN: 1844710122 | Trim Size: 216 x 140 mm | Extent: 152pp | Format: Paperback

UK Distribution:   | USA Distribution:   | Publishing Status: Active

SYNOPSIS

Order of the Ordinary brings three of Joe Francis Doerr’s longer cycles, Letters to Woodhenge, Corrigenda, and F U TH A R K 2K, together with many shorter sequences and individual poems of varying length. In a collection of wide thematic and chronological proportions, the prehistoric, the medieval, and the contemporary are surveyed with equal awe and a sense of possibility. Pop culture inhabits the same intellectual terrain as the classical, and languages alien to one another attempt to make sense of themselves through experiments in meta-translation. Primarily concerned with what we know, or believe we know, of the world, Doerr questions the ways we have traditionally ordered and articulated information. In Order of the Ordinary, he invites readers to suspend their preconceptions, and offers a glimpse of his own unique revoicing of experience.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Order of the Ordinary; Letters to Woodhenge; Why the Earth Shakes; [Introit]; Notes & Conversations; Backtracking; [Kyrie]; Aus-Tex Proceeds from Cahokia; Joplin; [Gloria]; Mythissippi Mud; A Handful of Dust; [Credo]; Saarinen; Burroughs; [Offertory]; Swimming Near the Guardrail; January Thaw; [Sanctus]; James Arthur Defenestrates Winter; The Delta Queen in Dire Straits; [Agnus Dei]; Brubeck Serenades the Snow Queen; Desmond Takes Five from Dying; [Communion]; Desmond & the Piasa Bird; Star-crossed; [Benedicamus]; AN. IM. DCCCCXCVII.HER ÆTEOWDE SE FEAXEDE STEORRA; f u th a r k 2k; [feoh] Wealth; [ur] The Wild Ox; [thorn] The Thorn; [ansuz] Language; [rad] Riding; [cen] The Torch; [gyfu] The Gift; [wyn] Joy; [hægl] Hail; [nyd] Need; [is] Ice; [ger] The Year; [eoh] The Yew; [peorth] The Game; [eolhxsecg] Marsh Grass; [sigel] The Sun; [tir] A Star; [beorc] The Birch; [eh] The Horse; [man] The Human Being; [lagu] The Sea; [ing] The God of Fertility; [ethel] Native Land; [dæg] The Day; [ac] The Oak; [æsc] The Ash; [yr] The Bow; [iar] A Sea Creature; [ear] The Clay; [ … ] The Unknowable; Corrigenda; I. Marwnat Owein; II. Lament for Owain; III. Lament One More for Owain; IV. War Music with Steel Guitar; V. The Last Wave By; VI. Excursus; VII. Memento:Meminisse:Minisci:; Epistolary Suite: Three Letters For Friends Gone Missing; Thou Philip, Thief of Loco-Focos; Anderson, The Snow Flies; Of The State Of Disunion, Inter Alia; Making a Harp; Thumbnails for Portrait of Sacher-Masoch; Die Kunst des Jägers; Die Kunst des Bauers; Die Kunst des Ölmalers; Die Kunst der Heilerin; The Chord; F:; B:; G#:; D#:; Sestina for the Birds; Hill Country Reservations; Sand Years; Roof Stones; A Piece of September; Shining Moment (That Is); Antebellum Triptych; In Search of a Helen; The Narrow Sea†; 1.28.03 15:43:29; 2.02.03 00:16:05; 2.11.03 20:49:47; Fragment from “In Parenthesis”Part 4: King Pellam’s Launde by David Jones; Skellig

PRAISE FOR THIS BOOK

“I deeply admire Joe Doerr’s work for its invention, ambition, variety and independence. He belongs to no particular school or movement but writes with great authority in a number of modes. The publication of his first book is an important event.” —John Matthias

“Disturbs all the codes.” —John Kinsella

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Joe Francis Doerr is a poet, musician, and essayist whose Order of the Ordinary was published by Salt in 2003. His poems, reviews, and criticism have appeared in numerous journals including Fifth Wednesday, Notre Dame Review, PN Review, and Stand. A new book, Tocayo, has garnered interest from a number of publishers. Doerr is also the singer and lyricist for the internationally acclaimed dystopic blues band Churchwood, and Visiting Assistant Professor of English Writing & Rhetoric at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas where he lives with his wife Mary.