I Is to Vorticism

Winner of the 2009 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM chapbook contest, Ben Mirov’s I IS TO VORTICISM is an auspicious debut from a poet to watch. A recurring character in the poetry of Ben Mirov is Ben Mirov, part charming host, part self-inflicted lab experiment in a debut dedicated to demonstrating our daily, perilous transformations. These poems are sudden, agile, heart-strong, and as wonderfully unsolvable as their analogical title. Welcome to the surgical theater. You’re finally going to learn how to sleep with your eyes open. –Dobby Gibson These poems and parables celebrate the idea of no self, even as they sing a host of eccentric alter-egos and delightfully strange secret-identities into being. Using ‘interstellar ventriloquism, ’ Ben Mirov is able to inhabit several worlds at once. He deftly mixes the mythic with the mundane, the literary with the cartoonish, sincerity and simulacra. The result is an impressive, often hilarious, book that truly works on many levels. –Elaine Equi