The Book / Or / The Woods

Here is The Book / Or / The Woods, an epic song cycle that devours itself on repeat, taking cover in its own flames. We think epic in the sense of bpNichol writing* Martyrology,* Jabès with his books of books, Rosmarie Waldrop’s Curves to the Apple, Keith Waldrop’s* Transcendental Studies,* Harryette Mullen’s Recyclopedia, Craig Santos Perez’s from unincorporated territory, Nathaniel Mackey’s long song(s), & others. We think epic with these ongoing & collected meta-serial works rather than the traditional notion of the epic as heroic nation building story, though we borrow epic tropes from Dante’s supernal underworld forest (& infernal forested underworld), sing with Sappho’s lyre, are haunted by the spirit of Homer’s katabasis, & are formed by the Popol Vuh’s wordly cosmos, which influenced us before we read it.