Fragmentation and Volta

Fragmentation and Volta by Paul Ilechko is a carefully formulated book with a structure that is more architectural than conceptual. One part of the book (the fragmentation) is composed of sets of minimalist prose poems, all of which were inspired by a close reading of the works of the great British poet Ken Smith. Beginning with “… imagine a living creature turned to stone     cold blood and raw meat enclosed in shells made of chitin”, the fragments traverse a spectral world of wilderness and near silence, before ending up where “…the train accelerated through the tunnel and crossed the international border     slicing through the pressure of dead air”

The other half of the book (the volta) is composed of four crowns of modern sonnets, which address a wide range of topics including art, love and natural disasters. Working people appear “sprawled across the stubbled field     pale as church light in the late afternoon”. Fires are burning “flames swelling like an ocean of narrative     Cy Twombly flower-kissed in orange and red”. A natural disaster of epic proportions occurs, “leaving behind its predictable catastrophe     fields of rotten items     mud-soaked and stinking of despair”. But there is a light ahead, as “it’s evening in the city now     time moves faster there     the sky is a canvas for the towers to shine against.”

These two components, the hallucinatory prose fragments and the sonnets, are interwoven, braided together to form an intricate whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.