USEREVIEW 002: Impossible Language for the Unnavigable Self

Khashayar Mohammadi/ September 5, 2020/ Book Review, Experimental Review

Khashayar Mohammadi gives us a review in the form of a poem — adding a new harmony to the polyvocal chorus of Canisia Lubrin‘s exploratory, book-length poem The Dyzgraphxst (McClelland & Stewart, 2020). In doing so, Mohammadi focalizes crucial concepts in the text and reveals the expanse of its spheres of inquiry.

ISBN 978-0-771048-69-2 | 176pp | $21.00

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I

the Dyzgraph^xst is oceanic
the Dyzgraph^xst is directionally blended into the I
the Dyzgraph^xst is the cursor italicized
|I         .           |I         .           |I
the Dyzgraph^xst is flashing in binary

II

the unnavigable self doesn’t see I:I
the jejune, the elusive Quixote
windmilled into dotted i

III

a single utterance of jejune
is a stone skipped on the self
with each touch
the self surfaces into ripples
(~~~~(~~~i~~~)~~~)

IV

jejune
pillared on either side
je june je
I june I

V

jejune is sorry but never at fault
since the motor has been
“towing jejune this whole while”

VI

the jejune flirts around the rim of the self.
It’s a (w)rung self climbing down the
third-baptismal ladder

VII

the self is continuous
            “Arrival”
is the augmented I

VIII

Dreamwaves froth
at the teeth

IX

Jejune is sculpted by language
“take this volta, it is to be kept pristine”
Jejune is itself language

X

Jejune is the gateway drug
Nil ex nihilo
God-contingent gods

XI

“refuge is a guilt”
and the boredom of arrival
is the survival dream
of the left behind

XII

word^wordword_wordword^wordword
“what you call civilization
still whole without language”
what hole does the language fill
which void births the I

XIII

placid water
grief moves
landwards

XIV

time cyst
word^word furlough
nondescript
word^word abridged
word swords
honing
tongue
at the
incisor

XV

“if given us/ give us”
offered in tongue
offered in blood

XVI

Jejune comes to speak
the crowd says I
jejune turns to leave
the crowd turns sky
jejune comes to doubt
the crowd-turned eye

XVII

beauty is an assassin
              light mistaken
as a component of flesh

XVIII

sublingual jejune
under the em dash
subtextual eye

XIV

the naked symmetry
              of the self
skinned into grief
the tongue bifurcate
now cutting
violent/violin

XX

hulk: of brutality
hank: of self loss
heft or self t(heft)

XXI

what made words left us
graphique graphisme graphyzt
tar-smeared cracks of the jejunic I

XXII

time stops for the Dyzgraph^xst
              suns set on atrocities
sun-settler waverunners
foaming towards the cosmic eye

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