Taking both form and inspiration from Ishmael s abandoned "Cetalogical Dictionary," this highly original work muses on myth, representation, language, nature, consciousness, notions of spiritual quest, and other elements of Melville s masterpiece. From "Accuracy" to "Wound," "Adam" to "Void," "Babel" to "Silence," these cross-referential, highly associative entries comprise an utterly singular work of art. A Whaler s Dictionary is the mesmerizing product of a total immersion into one of the greatest novels in the English language."

Poetry. One of the most acclaimed new poets in America entwines found and original texts, creating literal form--this book--out of sheer metaphor. In this language nest, the mind of poet and reader find a common dwelling place. Through this collaged material ("used" motifs running through include Echo and Narcissus, spider webs, and philosophy), the author reveals the nest of the mind/book as a never wholly original structure, but one that forms from found material.

Shields call out to the violence from which they also protect us, a paradox that belongs as well to the images etched upon them. In these poems seven shields each suffer a process, one of wounding, and of healing the wound back to song. Shards are what remain of shields, fragment words relict from the first poem. Shards become stitches, barest suture of meaning made only from what language in the shard remains. Last, built upon the stitches, keeping intact what letters and words there remain, seven songs to replace seven shields, born out of a violence they seek only to sing themselves past.