Bøger af Adrian Matejka

A collaboration of visual art and poetry inspired by Funkadelic's classic albums Standing on the Verge of Getting It On and Maggot Brain. Adrian Matejka's (Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry for The Big Smoke) new book Standing On the Verge & Maggot Brain is a chorus of poems and visual art that is psychedelic and bright, full of quarter notes disguised as words. The poems bend like a solo bends the big ideas of Funkadelic's glitter and unrepentant funk. The colletion also bends the design of books themselves. Standing On the Verge & Maggot Brain is more accurately described as a double-chapbook, featuring two front covers and no back cover. Essentially, it is a two-in-one book. For the Standing On the Verge section of the two chaps, sculptor and artist Kevin Neireiter translates music into stained glass graffiti in honor of the landmark record. For Maggot Brain, Nicholas Galanin's (also front man of the Sub Pop band Ya Tseen) art creates musical compositions from monochromatics in response to the quintessential album. Matejka's collection of poems is synesthesia for the ear and alchemy for the eyes and heart. Standing On the Verge & Maggot Brain is both a tribute to the iconic band Funkadelic and deep introspection of the contrasts in poet Matejka's celebrant hips and maggot brain. Just as the album Standing on the Verge of Getting It On is a celebration of energy and action, Maggot Brain is a place of deep sorrow. Matejka explores both the light and dark within the original visual art by Kevin Neireiter and Nicholas Galanin, reflecting the poet's radiances and shadows.

A resonant new collection of poetry from Adrian Matejka, author of The Big Smoke, a finalist for The Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award Map to the Stars, the fourth poetry collection from National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist Adrian Matejka, navigates the tensions between race, geography, and poverty in America during the Reagan Era. In the time of space shuttles and the Strategic Defense Initiative, outer space is the only place equality seems possible, even as the stars serve to both guide and obscure the earthly complexities of masculinity and migration. In Matejka's poems, hope is the link between the convoluted realities of being poor and the inspiring possibilities of transcendence and escape-whether it comes from Star Trek, the dream of being one of the first black astronauts, or Sun Ra's cosmic jazz.