A multilingual Spanish and English book by the Chilian writer Carlos Soto Román.
Carlos Soto-Román NATURE OF OBJECTS is a collection of three books gathered into one volume. The first section "Pierrot le Fou", written in Spanish, is a long concrete poem. Pierrot le Fou has been used as a score for audiovisual performances by Soto-Román. The second book is an English-language recreation of the Spanish text. The third section NATURE OF OBJECTS is a collection of minimal poems that is a "Love poem in the face of catastrophe" as Rachel Levitsky has described it.
"Try to seize / the means / of production" states Carlos Soto-Román, mid-way through one of the two long poems that make up NATURE OF OBJECTS. Both pieces achieve the extraordinarily difficult task of writing--powerfully, delicately, and without-cliche--about the point at which (good) poetry meets (bad) politics. In Pierrot le Fou the gradual unfolding of meaning enacts the process of revelation and resistance and as such engages the reader in its process and message as opposed to beating them over the head with it. NATURE OF OBJECTS is (in part) a meditation upon control and creative freedom. Soto-Román does not "seize" the world so much as he embraces it, creating a political poetry that reaches for your hand instead of going for the throat. It is work of huge clarity, generosity, and compassion. As such, it is some of the most powerful and important poetry that is currently being written."--Tim Atkins
"In NATURE OF OBJECTS, Carlos Soto-Román proposes and exacts two feats. First, the poet enters the lacunae of the unspeakable and wreaks language out from the mere fact of letters - as if Mallarmé and M. NourbeSe Philip collided on the screen of a tender and enabling pillow of artificial intelligence. Then, while resting on our tender pillow, we are reminded that "The eye is/just a prank", an organ, like all human and AI organs, one that registers too quickly. CSR insists on slowing it all down and makes the impossible--love poetry in the face of catastrophe-- not just a necessity, but a possibility."--Rachel Levistky
Poetry.
