Hiccups: Autobiomythography II - Softcover

Joe Pan is the author of two collections of poetry, HICCUPS (Augury Books, 2015) and Autobiomythography & Gallery (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2007). He is the publisher and managing editor of Brooklyn Arts Press, serves as the poetry editor for the arts magazine Hyperallergic and small press editor for Boog City, and is the founder of the services- oriented activist group Brooklyn Artists Helping. His piece "Ode to the MQ-9 Reaper," a hybrid work about drones, was excerpted and praised in The New York Times. In 2015 Joe participated in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Process Space artist residency program on Governors Island. Joe attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, grew up along the Space Coast of Florida, and now lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

"In this satisfying second Autobiomythography collection (after Autobiomythography & Gallery), Pan hits the ground running with brief snapshots of life in the U.S.--and later the world--that hover in the same emotional sphere as haiku. Through Pan's striking cinematography and use of perspective, readers see how "bugs practice shadow puppets/ behind the green leaf" in vivid close-up and experience in panorama the "sad, lived-in silence" of places like Anchorage, Alaska. In terms of autobiography and mythos, Pan hits the clearest notes when reconciling with his own place in time, as in the startling sequence "Nineteen Years After My Nineteenth Year," which opens with a "Mayfly/ in my coffee, stroking/ (goddamnit) down my throat" and closes with the listless observation that "every city is a Seurat/ & no city as well." Along the way, Pan alights on tercets that blend hilarity, apathy, bemusement, and love for his adopted home of N.Y.C. The ambitious final sequence, "NyQuil™ Lucid Fever Lucky Dream Light Emporium," makes optimal use of his tercets while he devilishly blurs the line between dashes and chemical bonds. This clever and fascinating take on organic chemistry makes a perfect closer. Pan's latest presents new rewards with each reading." -Publishers Weekly