John Harkey, hailing from Georgia but currently living cozily in Sunnyside, Queens, is a PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center. His dissertation, on "small poems" (small, not short), devotes itself principally to Lorine Niedecker, George Oppen, Susan Howe, and the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce. He recently started Creature Press, a vehicle for hand-made chapbooks.
So hey, John Harkey's poems are really something, effervesced Tim Peterson to me over brunch last Sunday. I was skeptical. No really, Tim continued, isn't it fascinating how his work integrates a wide range of sounds from Coolidge and Elmslie to Susan Howe's dense music and Robert Creeley's syncopated line breaks, mixing the whole thing into an engaging and considerably opaque melange? Huh, I responded, I dunno, can he be aware of how good this work really is? He seems somewhat self-deprecating about it, starring as his speaker with an expansive, impish indirectness, but how innocent or naive can a guy who writes impending phrases like "indiscreetly disclosed flesh-bolstering trusses" or "say your peace, distressor-box--better / friendlies not found, bitter / husks holding a tenor groan / or they shushusha" really be? Tim agreed, putting a lot of multisyllabic, grostesque words next to one another in odd, humorous combinations next to his fruit salad, because one thing that continually bowing out, or reappearing furtively, manages to do is put one into a space beside oneself, escaping a formal procedure that might otherwise be just "the same / dark thrill of business casual." Instead, John Harkey is kinda adamant in his poems, "enough, I / suggest." And standing beside oneself, language becomes private and public in a thickly material way, "Great: facing text glares / from the verso. How can I / concentrate?" This writing is so driven by reading that it's a bonus, because you can now have the pleasure of stepping into John Harkey's shoes to listen.
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