The chromatic, linguistically playful, erotic conclusion to Wayne Koestenbaum's acclaimed trance poem trilogy.

Ultramarine distills gleanings from four years of Koestenbaum's trance notebooks (2015-2019) into a series of tightly-sewn collage-poems, filled with desiring bodies, cultural touchstones, and salty memories. Beyond Proust's madeleine we head toward a "deli" version of utopia, crafted from hamantaschen, cupcake, and cucumber. Interludes in Rome, Paris, and Cologne permit spells of fevered play with Italian, French, and German. Painting and its processes bring bright colors to the surface, as if the poet were trying to figure out anew the nature of blue, pink, orange. Ultramarine reaches across memory, back to Europe, beyond the literal world into dream-habitats conjured through language's occult structures.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Nightboat Books
Published: 02/22/2022
ISBN: 9781643621159
Pages: 400
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 7.70h x 4.90w x 1.30d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 11/15/2021