Bodh[i] Circu[it]s / Alg[a]e[bra] D[ra[in]]

by Derek White. Calamari Press 350 W. 57th St Apt 3H, New York, New York 10019. calamaripress.com

Book Review by Michael Basinski

Bodh[i] Circu[it]s / Alg[a]e[bra] D[ra[in]] continues work that Derek White has done in his previous books: 23 Text Tiles and Mining in the Black Hills both 2003 from Calamari Press . This is expansive visual poetry and as that something needed. Guilty, visual poets are sometimes of repeating themselves via style and form and medium but you won’t find any of that in Derek White. He is the most expansive visual poet I’ve read in some time. Each page in fact is a new field of work, a new form, form of forms, and he has not abandoned the word but has each time found it fresh and new again and is able to ornament it in balance with visuals, various forms, lines images, color, type, print, hands, photocopy, and conglomeration, a constellation cooperation of mediums germinates and generates into a splendidly babbling work. And with babble I mean only a compliment because babble is the multi-sound/dimensions one hears, as sweet delight, when engaging White’s diverse fields of work. Finally, a two eyes poet! One eye visual and one readable ’ one focused imagination. See also his magazine SleepingFish www.sleepingfish.net Fish and net ’ I like it!