Etymologies
Autor Walter Ancarrowen Limba Engleză Paperback – 6 mai 2023
Walter Ancarrow’s collection Etymologies considers language as a process, rather than as a singular fixed history. These poems build imaginative worlds with a variety of creative word uses. They form a playful amalgamation of linguistic interpretations that flips and questions conventional narratives about word origins—including the idea that clear origins even exist. Throughout the collection, Ancarrow questions the intent of writers who use etymology in attempts to prove a specific meaning for any word. In so doing, Etymologies pays particular attention to relationships between the cultures and conflicts, the migrations and hegemonies, that create our words, and it considers how their meanings are furthered by us as we keep them alive through speech.
Etymologies won Omnidawn’s 2021 Open Poetry Book Prize, selected by John Yau.
Preț: 102.33 lei
Puncte Express: 153
Carte disponibilă
Livrare economică 11-25 iunie
Livrare express 28 mai-03 iunie pentru 48.24 lei
Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781632431134
ISBN-10: 1632431130
Pagini: 71
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 10 mm
Greutate: 0.09 kg
Editura: Omnidawn Publishing, Inc.
Colecția Omnidawn
ISBN-10: 1632431130
Pagini: 71
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 10 mm
Greutate: 0.09 kg
Editura: Omnidawn Publishing, Inc.
Colecția Omnidawn
Notă biografică
Walter Ancarrow is the author of Etymologies. He is a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts fellow and a 2026 writer in residence at Nawat Fes in Fes, Morocco.
Recenzii
"Both analogy and allegory find lyric form and concrete-poetic form throughout Ancarrow’s book."
"Ancarrow's Etymologies, mostly comprised of brief prose pieces, opens with three words: 'ahuakatl / aguacate / avocado,' encompassing Aztec origins, Spanish colonialism, and branding at the hands of California farmers in the early twentieth century. This entry, and the collection's closing two words 'banana / banana'—which follows, from the previous page, 'A search ensued for the loose word, that if pulled out, would cause indescribable destruction'—frame the book’s imaginative linguistic dives."
"A lyric examination and play of etymologies, threading multiple languages and dense lyric, holding to small spaces and expansive perspectives. Ancarrow’s book-length suite threads through a sequence of self-contained and formally daring and fresh lyric sections that accumulate their way through the polyglot, akin to a field notes on language itself. . . . Ancarrow’s playful and quick wit speaks to interrelated and polyphonic meaning, pulling apart origins and conventions, and how deeply we are all interconnected. This is a startling and thoughtful debut."
"In the fall of 2024, the Poetry Daily editorial committee passed Walter Ancarrow’s Etymologies around like a treasure, electrified by its sculptural, Calvinoesque intelligence….Each poem in this book-length sequence, also a folded map of space-time, reads the unsayable in its gathers."
“Ancarrow combines extreme precision with a wild imagination. In a ‘Note’ at the end of the book, he writes: ‘The etymologies in this book are correct, though not necessarily complete, sometimes poetically so.’ And therein lies the magic of Etymologies. The author seems to have made nothing up, to have been, it would appear, coolly objective throughout the writing of each study of a word’s origin. And yet, despite this claim, which I do not doubt, feelings and fancifulness emerge–like a swarm of genies freed from many bottles–at once impish, amatory, mysterious, provocative, funny, delightful, and dazzling.”
"Ancarrow's fabulist maxims are laced with surprises. His entries are either notational or so profound, they seem etched in stone: 'we live between impermanences of language—building a home is settling on translation.' Etymologies are glorious distillations of mischief and erudition."
"With Etymologies, Ancarrow returns us to the source and medium of all literary art: language itself. Formally playful, brimming with knowledge, and a poetic event with the subtle, yet dazzling contours of a puzzle, this collection unveils new insights on every page. Etymologies marks a marvelous debut!"