A Thousand Words and Others

Author: George Tysh Publisher: BlazeVOX (2019) George Tysh’s two-part take on presence and absence is rooted in jazz and painting, French and Mandarin, memory and longing, in a recto-verso approach to structure. Its first bareboned section, “A Thousand Words,” is 100 pages, ten words per page, set in columns that give a nod to classical stanza form. Part Two, “and Others,” a coda of sparse lyrics, fills out the tone of what is barely implied in Part One. In a mixture of vernacular and stark poetics, he produces a book-length series that experimental novelist Lynn Crawford calls, “Lush. Rhythmic. Disturbing. Gorgeous.”