Emptied of All Ships

Author: Stacy Szymaszek Publisher: Litmus Press (2005) "Stacy Szymaszek places her readers in a border situation. Here is a poetics of extreme condensation. 'ink a hinge here/ 'n here/ 'n mother/ make me limber.' Where traces are, lines remain. Magic is implicated in every shot and countershot. This is idiosyncratic and stunning work." –Susan Howe "Each poem is what I am looking for: a resonance with a particular location, an intelligence unafraid of its humanity, a sort of desperate adequacy with the people or objects that Szymaszek encounters." –Etel Adnan "Emptied of All Ships is a setting out into crucial waters. Each word here has its own weight and position--its own vital movement between poles of loss and discovery. With our sight-lines thus widened, the observance itself becomes activated--another mode of transport. A poetry of brevity is a tough task (especially the word-as-line), but in these pages it registers as achievement." –George Albon "These stanza-pearls are dressed i