Transverse

Author: 최 Lindsay | Lindsay Choi

Publisher: Futurepoem (2021)

Transverse weaves between languages and forms, cultivating the questions and lacunae that emerge in their encounter. In the three parts that make up the book, music, mathematics, philosophical logic, and lyric convention come in and out of relation to press upon questions of form and meaning-making, and attend to the moments when coherence appears to take place or dissolve. Following sonic and visual echos, practices and plays upon citation, Transverse traces and distorts logics of allegory, repetition, and representation, moving towards an inquiry into the nature of our encounter with and recognition of the world.

"Both desperately philosophical and tenderly present, 최 Lindsay in the writing of their book length Transverse recognizes language as both limit and threshold, impasse and passage. As the poetry unfolds, a reality comes into being. And that reality is, in turn, a realm of existence from which the language of the poetry can speak, however indirectly, to us, the readers of the book. An inevitably indirect, incomplete and yet excessive communication transpires, one that can't help but reveal an incomplete and yet overflowing existence. One might term it a realm of the ghostly sublime, but itís a realm of social and physical materiality, too, requiring both linguistic invention and answerability. There are few poets capable of rendering difficult and complex thinking into a work of rigorous and exquisite beauty, but this is exactly what 최Lindsay has done. Transverse is magnificent."

-Lyn Hejinian