One Continuous Mistake
From NAPRA
Review, Mar/Apr 1999
Writing saved Sher's life, and in the unraveling and winding back up, she
reinvented writing for herself as an entirely new way of being in the world. This
wonderful little book surprises, fascinates, and counsels wisely on every page as it
introduces writing as spiritual practice--in chapters including "Five Pillars of
Writing", "Bleached-Bone Simplicity", and The Rubbery Time of
Revision." A Zen delight.
SELECTED REVIEWS FOR
Marginalia (poetry)
From Small
Press Distribution, 1998
"stone. old stone / caterwauling / bambina" ("Garden
Party 1952"). As Jack Collom writes of Gail Sher's supercondensed neo-Zaum,
neo-Buddhist lyric micronarratives, "her surprises will keep you open-mouthed.
They're the fine haiku of derangement; each poem soberly twitters and schwitters across a
streak of the page 'not aleatory,' pure surprise because it's boiled down so far." As
Sher notes, the poems in MARGINALIA were inspired by the paintings of George Tooker,"
and each piece takes as its name the apparent name and date of a painting, lending a
Gertrude Stein or Virgil Thomson portrait sense to these improvised hits, where all
possible words are considered within the realm of conceivable employ. "swan. oral
swan / (yew) mani / cartwheel /// starry (do it) / mulatto/sea-language" ("Lantern 1977").
SELECTED REVIEWS FOR
Kuklos (poetry)
From Small Press Distribution, 1998
"Baptist ash. // Meaty noh / poi." Gail Sher strips her
words from their usual habitat and makes those familiar and obscure vibrant in a
pre-context. Sher presents language from the high wire -- a breathtaking performance.
KUKLOS is defined from the Greek as "circle, circular body; circular motion; ring,
wheel, disc, eye, shield; town wall." These definitions may help explain the sense of
vertiginous economy found in the text. About her previous work, Poetics Journal noted that Sher's poetry attempts "to break out of our misleading sense of
stability."
SELECTED REVIEWS FOR
LA (poetry)
From Small Press Distribution, 1998
"Haiku brevity, mantrum sorcery -- each page of of Gail Sher's
book could be torn from a tender grimoire of the future. Imagine hearing it chanted to
incense in a back room! I find crisp demonstration here that in our upcoming millenium
poems might occur in all tongues simultaneously" -Andrew Schelling. Gail Sher, who
lives in the Bay Area, is author of a string of most unusual booklets, including Broke Aide (Burning Deck), Rouge to Beak Having Me (Moving Letters), COPS (Little Dinosaur),
(As) on Things Which (Headpiece) Touches the Moslem (Square Zero) and From Another Point of View the Woman Seems to be Resting (Trike).
