Introduction by Pam Ore
Cover art by Molly Corey
Illustrations by Tamzo
Book 3 of 5, TrenchArt Casements Series
Poetry | $15.00
ISBN: 0-9766371-6-2
Size: 9.25 X 4.25
Pages: 105

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Inch Aeons is a meditation on the form of meaning, the nature of nature, and the locality of tradition in an over-wired-world. Here, award-winning poet Nuala Archer adopts, breaks and recreates the limits of haiku, evoking moments of collision and convergence, from “Beyond Conception— / Without Regeneration— / Big Bang’s Leave let Be” to “Am-Is-Are—Was-Were— / Has-Have-Had—Do-Does-Did—Shall- / Should—Can-Could—Will-Would—.” These are poems, as poet Pam Ore says in the Introduction, “like starlight, resonat[ing] with the brightness of an original violence, cooling-healing and coalescing into the word.” Illustrated by Japanese artist Tamzo, and framed with an image from Molly Corey’s Family of Man Project, the poems in Inch Aeons are cracked and beautiful, fragmented and fully-formed as the world they come from.

PRAISE FOR ARCHER

For Inch Aeons:

“The capricious capitalization and the pell-mell and dizzy flight of these expressions create new and improbable beings of considerable splendor. In all her work, however concealed may be her meanings, there is a constant search for precise form on a plane of being that did not before exist.”

—The Compulsive Reader

“Nuala Archer’s Inch Aeons offers spiritual transformations by turns, from ancient and futuristic realms. These telegraphic poems exercise a form and grammar that is intelligent and hypnotic. They send urgent messages, invent usages, and turn time on its head. A complex and wondrous book.”

Juliet Patterson, author of The Truant Lover

For From a Mobile Home:

“An Irish poet, though born and now living in the U.S., Archer writes from a terrain populated by butterflies, birds, moths and dragonflies—anything that flies. Abstract and atmospheric, making excellent use of alliteration and wordplay, many poems recall John Ashbery’s.”

—Publishers Weekly

“[Archer] invents usages, slices words into constituent syllables, and deploys punctuation marks like firecrackers. This collection gathers both earlier work set in the more intimate landscape of Ireland and breathtakingly open lyrics from Archer’s more recent days in Oklahoma…”

—Booklist

For The Hour of Pan|amá:

“These poems achieve something which at first seems unlikely: they are both very finished and very experimental. They remain open and daring, while never failing to be crafted and persuasive. These are poems of powerful feeling and true accomplishment.”

— Eavan Boland

“A word-bath, scalding, blissful”

—Victor Luftig