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Derek White does all the artwork for Calamari books and with
Michael Boyko's collaboration the two have published a wonderful book in The
Hour Sets.
Take a look at the website to see some of the complex and amazing
illustrations. You feel as
though you are opening the face of a marvelous pocket watch that keeps
permutating before your eyes.
http://calamaripress.com/Boyko_Hour_Sets.htm
Michael Boyko creates an elegant program for this book:
They
are called the Hour Sets, and divided into
hours,
not because each cultural period lasts only
an
hour, but 1 hour is how long you must study the
symbols
of each cultural period in order to learn
everything
about it. The remaining 12 hours of
each
day are spent forgetting what you have
learned
about each cultural period, in the order
you
have learned it, by engaging only the symbols
of your
own cultural period. This is called sleep.
Boyko's prose poetry repeats with each Set notes about The Occupant, The
Researcher, and The Academy.
Onto this brilliantly simple armature, Boyko then elaborates a marvelous
cabinet of wonders: rabbit and
snake skins, a stone figure of a girl, various books and cots, tools,
clothing, a layer of fine white dust, a pileated woodpecker, a movie being
made, and, near the end, a strange ritual sacrifice. There are also children's games,
fanciful creatures, puppets and masters. " 1 of these marionettes holds
a small rusty knife."
The language of each piece keeps fluidity and structure balanced, keeps
morphing scene, objects, lists, acts, agencies. At the same time,
for all the attention being given to research, study, the regulations of the
Academy, the love of Time and its hours, the precise voice conveys a magical warmth for all that is
human.
In Hour 12, the Researcher eats a chocolate cupcake.
He sticks a
small candle into it and lights the candle
with a
match. He balances the cupcake
on his knee,
looks at it
for a while, then picks it up and blows out
the small
flame. He takes a bite of the
cupcake and
closes his
eyes. He wakes up on the cot
holding a
bundle of
flowers and a teddy bear. He
throws the
bear down on
the ground and places the flowers
on the
pillow. Sitting on the cot, he
writes his
penultimate
list.
By now we know to expect the List to be marvelous and Boyko delivers each
time.
The Hour Sets is a most delightful clockwork of prose poetry that keeps alive
a tradition you can't quite name and intrigues you with surprises just
elusive enough to be fresh every
time.
© Robert
Garlitz 2008
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