Eating the Colors of a Lineup of Words: The Early Books of Bernadette Mayer (Shp Archive Editions)

Bernadette Mayer has been one of the most influential poets of the late 20th century and into the present. Her celebrated and revolutionary first books have long been out of print, available on the secondary market at high costs, by loan or via single-page facsimiles online at Eclipse. While these early books have played an oceanic role in the formation of generations of poets, they are difficult to secure, meaning that opportunities to read them, let along examine them critically, has proven challenging at best. Their operative life has been reduced to rumor and/or brief excerpts, such as New Directions' Bernadette Mayer Reader. This unfortunate gap in the continuum of American experimental poetry is bridged with the publication of Eating the Colors of a Lineup of Words: The First Books of Bernadette Mayer. This multi-book collection includes Ceremony Latin; Red Book in Three Parts; Story; Moving; Poetry; Eruditio Ex Memoria; and The Golden Book of Words. (Studying Hunger Journals, also from this period, was published in 2011 by Station Hill; Memory is forthcoming from Black Widow Press.) This new edition will be an important acquisition for students of contemporary poetry, scholars and libraries.