Over at The Conversant, Frances Richard and Miranda Mellis engage in a wide-ranging discussion of their interests and work, including (but certainly not limited to) Richard’s The Phonemes, published by Les Figues.  Of Richard’s book, Mellis comments:

When I do a distant read or gestalt visualization of the contents of The Phonemes, what I see are cyclic movements, like sewing or rowing, what Kamau Brathwaite calls “tidalectics.” The book ends with a “Giant / mass of matter swarming in.” This break is the last in a series of caesuras—not closures nor completed actions, but not precipices either. Rather, here is a description of a being overtaken, swarmed, at once by what matters, and by matter itself (including text). It’s an image of almost over-fullness, a metonym for being done.

Read the full conversation here.