Huge — and (I hope) hugely influential — anthology ... This is a collection that makes an argument or, even more, aspires to frame a counter-tradition of literature ... Rich in allusions ... This is private literature rendered public ... The weave is so all-encompassing, the associations so multilayered, that I feel like fireworks are popping off inside my head ... More than anything, of course, the echoes belong to Myles, which is what gives Pathetic Literature a sensibility that is authorial as much as curatorial ... Pathetic Literature represents not so much a collection as it does an ethos: 'almost a poem,' its creator observes. These texts and voices take us someplace unexpected, beyond the individual and into the realm of a collective, a tapestry of words that add up to a way of being in the world.
Read Full Review >>