Enemy Luck

In using an epigraph from the 18th-century poet Christopher Smart, for years incarcerated in the madhouse, Nicholas Laughlin stakes his case for a poetics that is located between a radical innocence of risk and a knowing familiarity with the histories of poetic forms. On the one hand, knowing that “The less you know, the less mistaken”, Laughlin’s poetry has room for the accidental, the punning slip and the puzzlingly axiomatic (“You bruise a grammar before it bruises you.”) Like the brilliant Jamaican poet Anthony McNeill with his “mutants” (retained typos), for Laughlin “Errors are not accidents”.
On the other hand, Enemy Luck is almost an encyclopaedia of ingenious devices and forms: cut-outs that hint at kidnapping threats; a poem that resembles the often mystifying chapter summaries of the 19th-century novel (in which…); visits to geographical territories mutated from a Wilson Harris novel; found fragments; lengthier extracts from a variety of sources, from Strabo to Oliver Goldsmith, whose meaning is changed by their new contexts; translations where the original is absorbed into a characteristic Laughlin voice; an index to some fugitive travel narrative that invites the reader to construct their own story; seemingly absurd narratives that make perfectly good sense; seemingly realistic narratives that mystify like an Escher building; a cast of personas from Cousin Hermes to King Q.
Here is a collection that invites us to active reading, to picking up clues, to inserting ourselves into the dialogue between the poems. Above all, Nicholas Laughlin challenges us to think about the expectations and accumulated experiences we bring to the shaping influence of a variety of literary forms – and helps us to deconstruct them.

Folosind un epigraf al poetului Christopher Smart din secolul al XVIII-lea, de ani de zile incarcerat in casa nebunilor, Nicholas Laughlin isi propune argumentul pentru o poetica care se afla intre o inocenta radicala a riscului si o cunoastere a istoriei formelor poetice. Pe de o parte, stiind ca „Cu cat stii mai putin, cu atat mai putin gresit”, poezia lui Laughlin are loc pentru accidental, alunecare si axiomaticul nedumeritor („Invineti o gramatica inainte sa te invineteasca.”) Ca genialul jamaican poetul Anthony McNeill cu „mutantii” sai (tipografii retinuti), pentru Laughlin „Erorile nu sunt accidente”. Pe de alta parte, Enemy Luck este aproape o enciclopedie de dispozitive si forme ingenioase: decupaje care indica amenintarile de rapire; o poezie care seamana cu rezumatele adeseori mistificatoare ale capitolelor romanului din secolul al XIX-lea (in care ...); vizite in teritorii geografice mutate dintr-un roman al lui Wilson Harris; fragmente gasite; extrase mai lungi dintr-o varietate de surse, de la Strabo la Oliver Goldsmith, a caror semnificatie este schimbata de noile lor contexte; traduceri in care originalul este absorbit intr-o voce caracteristica Laughlin; un index al unei naratiuni fugitive de calatorie care invita cititorul sa-si construiasca propria poveste; naratiuni aparent absurde care au perfect sens; naratiuni aparent realiste care mistifica ca o cladire Escher; o distributie de persoane de la Varul Hermes la Regele Q. Iata o colectie care ne invita la lectura activa, la culegerea de indicii, la inserarea noastra in dialogul dintre poezii.