Name: Jeremy Boyd's review of Boat by Lisa Robertson
Item: Boat
Rating: 5
Author: Jeremy Boyd

Lisa Robertson

From the author of The Baudelaire Fractal, a poetry classic, with new work In 2004, boldly original poet Lisa Robertson published a chapbook, Rousseau’s Boat, poems culled from years of notebooks that are, nevertheless, by no means autobiographical. In 2010, she expanded the work into a full-length book, R’s Boat. During the pandemic, she was drawn back into decades of journals to shape Boat. These poems bring fresh vehemence to Robertson’s ongoing examination of the changing shape of feminism, the male-dominated philosophical tradition, the daily forms of discourse, and the possibilities of language itself. “Robertson has quietly but surely emerged as one of our most exciting and prolific philosophers—I mean poets. Interested in architecture, weather systems, fashion, autobiography, gender, the classics, and just about everything else, she manages to irradiate her subjects with calm, wit, and astonishing beauty. Robertson’s style is both on splendid display and under fierce interrogation in her latest book, R’s Boat.” —Kenyon Review “In R’s Boat, Robertson has penned a post-conceptual, post-lyric, relentlessly self-examining performance of memory and sincerity that manages, remarkably, to be both theoretically concerned and deeply emotive.” —Harvard Review “R's Boat grapples with form, the constraint of language and tradition, and the challenge to avoid anything that might exist as template. The poems examine feminism, discourse, the body, and poetry itself through sumptuous, seductive language.” —American Poets

Boat

Genesis (@whisperingchapters)

My favorite poet - the seam used on the opening long poem is one of the most ingenious and simple plays on form I’ve seen, and yet it creates several units of meaning within the lines themselves while splicing reverberations until they shape new ideas. Could this be their best collection? Perhaps. If you find yourself loving it, please read “Nilling,” which are philosophical/poetic essays. 

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
Boat by Lisa Robertson

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Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &Boat by Lisa Robertson

Reviews

Join the club

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
Boat by Lisa Robertson