The Contortionist Whispers

Author: Will Alexander

Publisher: Action Books (2022)

“One is never trapped by what seems better or worse, but one simply exists, curiously rising above surrounding tarnish and ailment, listening to oneself via voiceless alchemical mirrors.” From King Leopold’s atrocities in the Congo to modern-day American consumerism, Will Alexander’s The Contortionist Whispers examines a poet’s role across space and time as a lingual power, a “practitioner of occult harvests,” recruiting and combining the former insights of many—William Blake, Fernando Pessoa, Aimé Césaire, Alfonsina Storni, Jayne Cortez, Antonin Artaud—into one momentously moving effort to move beyond both being and nothingness.