reMote control
Written by: Vanessa Couto Johnson
Paperback | Pages: 92
Size: 5.5w x 8.25h
ISBN: 9798991699303
Publication Date: 03/18/2025
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About The Book
The poems in reMote control are concerned with the particles that influence - whether societal micromort, viral threat, familial grief, or gender felt. Motes of * alternatively censor or open word possibilities and simultaneities. The speaker seeks remoteness that enables survival and beyond: while the motes that make us bind, other binds are choices or surprises. Whether stitch or incision, both have purpose; a simultaneous power of both is sought in lines filled with slashes. To quilt or to quit is one letter away.
reMote control is Vanessa Couto Johnson's third full-length book; VCJ (she/they) is also the author of the full-length poetry books Pungent dins concentric (Tolsun Books, 2018) and pH of Au (Parlor Press, Free Verse Editions Series 2022), as well as three poetry chapbooks: Life of Francis (winner of Gambling the Aisle’s 2014 Chapbook Contest), rotoscoping collage in Cork City (dancing girl press, 2016), and speech rinse (winner of Slope Edition’s 2016 Chapbook Contest). A Brazilian who was born in Texas (a dual citizen), VCJ teaches at Texas State University.
See sample poems from this book here:
https://tersejournal.com/2021/08/18/3-poems-by-vanessa-couto-johnson/
https://thecollidescope.com/2021/10/24/floating-specious-gloat-or-to-the-apophenia-addict/
Praise for reMote control:
"These poems are spoken from a spliced tongue: both choral and individual, reMote control tears apart language at the seams to examine the layers of our everyday catastrophes. Fragmented and fractured, the voice of these poems is sewn together by a brilliant use of slashes, parentheses, and brackets that work to evoke a sense of disorder and order and panic and patience all at the same time. At the core of this collection is a question of what is and who holds control in our swarming world. These poems speak for their own survival in a cyclone of doubts and double meanings, calling the reader to listen and then listen again. Johnson writes, 'there is a break awaiting all of us' and these poems kept me on that ledge from cover to cover."
- Robin Gow, author of Our Lady of Perpetual Degeneracy
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