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Details and disorientation

A language to justify thought
by
September 2021, no. 435

Whirlwind Duststorm by John Hawke

Grand Parade Poets, $19.95 pb, 60 pp

Details and disorientation

A language to justify thought
by
September 2021, no. 435

In the epigraph to this collection, a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre on Edmund Husserl suggests that we are entering a poetic that challenges the possibility of conscious knowledge; consciousness is itself a maelstrom that extrudes the intruder and has ‘no inside’. What follows is both a refutation and embracement of this assertion in chatoyant language that is as thoughtful and melodic as it is powerful. The reader is obliged to work hard to navigate the narrative, and I have rarely read poetry where the search for meaning has been felt so deeply.

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