Overview

As with Constantine's previous titles, Dementia, My Darling can be enjoyed at random or in order. However, when taken in sequence, the poems construct a thesis on life as we remember it from moment to moment. What is your first memory of love? How soon will you forget answering that question?

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9781597097185

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Reviews

Constantine s most ambitious, most courageous, and most fully realized collection yet. </p> James Cushing, <i>The Los Angeles Review of Books</i></p> <i>Dementia, My Darling</i> is a powerful book yet it is written with empathy and respect. It shows us a different way to extract meaning when it is not readily perceived. Like Dante, the poet asks you to accompany him on this exploration of an unfamiliar terrain. Like Dante, a reader passes through this world and receives a different perspective of the landscape we thought we knew. Such is the power of Brendan Constantine's art. </p> <i>Quill & Parchment</i></p>

I love this collection. I m dazzled by its spectacular acts of imagination, the places it invents, the ways it invents of describing those places. Its most wondrous feat, though, is the heart it allows to beat behinds its intelligence, the person that peers from its intricate, sharp, brilliant latticework: so much structure, so much sharpness, and that softness, too. Bravo. Mandy Kahn, author Math, Heaven, Time

I love this collection. I'm dazzled by its spectacular acts of imagination, the places it invents, the ways it invents of describing those places. Its most wondrous feat, though, is the heart it allows to beat behinds its intelligence, the person that peers from its intricate, sharp, brilliant latticework: so much structure, so much sharpness, and that softness, too. Bravo. --Mandy Kahn, author Math, Heaven, Time Dementia, My Darling is a suite of acute, beautiful poems about coming apart, slippage, love, emptying out, transformation, and carrying on. Every absurdly human moment in them is handled with smarts and just the right mix of inventiveness and delicacy. Each poem leaves its mark on the reader. Tender and humane and unsparing, the poems never surrender to despair. They all have a kind of brightness. Constantine renders the creeping surrealism of dementia from many angles, with the awe that is its due. Gaps, anagrams, collage and montage are employed to convey the myriad ways we fragment, multiply, dissolve. A fly is described as 'an ink blot with wings / a blood spot / that sings a thin hymn.' (!!) This book is a lyrical wrestling match with mortality. -- Amy Gerstler, author of Dearest Creature Brendan Constantine's Dementia, My Darling is a mediation on memory. Poems address the difficulty of the death of memory and how does a survivor deal with recollections of a father's lie, a collective lie about snow, school desk carvings, sleep talking, moths, and hospital ceilings. This collection examines consciousness, connotations, and relationships. Constantine is a master poet illuminating the ordinary and extraordinary with his distinct voice holding humor and heart equally. --Steven Reigns, author of Inheritance

Author Information

Brendan Constantine is the author of the poetry collections Calamity Joe (Red Hen Press, 2012), Birthday Girl with Possum (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011), and Letters To Guns (Red Hen Press, 2009), which is now taught extensively in schools across the nation. His work has inspired artists in a variety of other mediums, from the canvas to the concert hall, and he has received grants and commissions from the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A popular performer, he has presented his work to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and KPFK’s “Inspiration House.” In 2014 he headlined at the Dodge Poetry Festival with many of the nation’s most celebrated authors. He currently teaches poetry at the Windward School in Los Angeles, California, and regularly conducts workshops for hospitals, foster homes, and with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project.

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