The Laboratory of Time, and other cutup poems, Peter Wortsman’s third collection of experiments in the form, lets time be told in the way we live it, sometimes stretching a second into seeming eternity, sometimes compressing eternity into a second. The first part, titled “The True Glue,” comprises recycled assemblages of words cut out of the newspaper that make a newfangled poetic sense. The second part, titled “The Five Books,” is an admittedly unorthodox retelling of biblical narrative, the poetic sap and zap of it extracted by means of a vertical transcription.
Exhalations burdened with meaning, they are forever being uttered, stuttered and forgotten, trashed and mulched to fertilize new formulations. What else is a cutup poem after all, or any kind of poem for that matter, but a wild flower sprouting out of the dirt!
The Laboratory of Time by Peter Wortsman is available now.
Author of work in multiple modes, including fiction, plays, poetry, and translation from the German, Peter Wortsman was a fellow of the Fulbright (1973) and Thomas J. Watson Foundations (1974), and a Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin (2010). His work has garnered a Beard’s Fund Short Story Award and an Independent Publishers Book Award, among other honors.
Twitter: @Wortsman
Facebook: @peter.wortsman
Instagram: @peter_wortsman
Website: https://www.peterwortsman.com/
Terry Givens and his wife Carolyne were married in Claremont, California in 1961.
He finished his education in Art History and Painting at UCR and the Claremont Graduate School and has participated in many Claremont events, namely exhibits at the Claremont Community Foundation and as a featured artist at the Taste of Claremont, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Claremont.
Terry has exhibited in a variety of media, with sculpture at the Ankrum Gallery, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Chaffey College, and with drawings and paintings in a variety of galleries in Sacramento. In 2018, the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden exhibited his drawings in a changing exhibition titled “Terry Givens: 100 Garden Views.” He has contributed many drawings to organizations, individuals, and businesses in and around Claremont.
In addition, he has curated exhibitions at the Rex Wignall Gallery in Ontario and the Riverside Art Museum. He taught art and photography in a variety of local elementary and secondary schools, as well as at local universities and colleges.
The series Garden Prayers, inspired by his Botanic Garden exhibit, and a book of photographs from the 1968 March on Washington were both published by Pelekinesis.
Website: tmgivens.com
Facebook: terry.givens2
