Copyright © Joel Chace 2012

All Rights Reserved Cover art by Tristan Chace

Copyright © Tristan Chace 2012 All Rights Reserved

Red Power

Joel Chace

quarter after press http://quarterafter.org/

Founding Editor: Calvin Pennix

In Praise of: With a nod toward Tristan Tzara's instructions for making a Dadaist poem ("take some scissors...."), Joel Chace's new book also takes its place among a number of works that have put gravity in the service of chance. Like Hans Arp's compositions of abstract geometric cut-outs or Jackson Pollock's signature drips or Joan Retallack's paperclipped apertures in Afterrimages, the poems here illuminate the extraordinary accident by which the aleatory and precipitous are linked in both Latin and German. The chance [Zufall] disposition of the words across the page in these poems is a singular event [Fall] arising from the coincidences [from the Latin cadere: "to fall"] of falling [fallend] along clinaminatic paths. The poet's gestures, however often repeated, cannot account in advance for variables in atmospheric conditions and the discrepant surface-areas of cut paper. The results, happily, are frequently prophetic, describing their own circumstances with a poetic obliquity. None of which should be surprising for a poet whose name, as it happens, is just a letter drop away from chance.

― Craig Dworkin

When I look at Joel Chace’s work, I see a series that speaks in tongues that spins out into eternity that hangs from Van Gogh’s asylum like a starry night. The elements of this series are deceptively simple: cut up words, punctuation, tape, and the background of the page. The beauty of this arrangement is how it all interacts; each word has multiple references, creating a nearly infinite number of combinations. Periods float, looking for sentences to close. The page speaks its essence, a grey haze that resembles dark matter that silently affects the overall mechanism. This quantum field, this gravitational attraction, aids in poem formation, pulling and tugging every word. And then there’s the tape; this is an aspect of cut up, of visual poetry, of illustrations that each creator attempts to cover up. Joel takes a bold leap here and intentionally incorporates his tape, creating an extra level of fog, words falling, sinking softly into a majestic black hole. If you enjoy checking out a visual poetry series, this is the one. Joel brings us all closer to the ultimate source of creativity. Any good visual poet should enlighten any good visual poet; Joel is and does both, and who could ask for more?

― Bill DiMichele

Thanks to the following publications where the pieces in this collection originally appeared: Big Bridge, Infinity’s Kitchen, and Otoliths.