Book of the Given

In this rigorously crafted collection, Rusty Morrison observes the fraught and alluring givens of eroticism, the authority of the script we think we are following and the demands of generosity where "expectation must be abandoned." The script, in this case, is by George Bataille. His passages, fractured and dispersed, are assembled into a text that speaks to us as a lover, not a philosopher, might, that intimately and that audaciously, with all the punning, sparring, avowals and reversals we expect from erotic charge.   Rusty Morrison has been the co-founder, co-publisher of Omnidawn since 2001. Her five books include After Urgency (won Tupelo's Dorset Prize), the true keeps calm biding its story (won Ahsahta's Sawtooth Prize, James Laughlin Award, N.California Book Award, & DiCastagnola Award from PSA), and most recently: Beyond the Chainlink (Ahsahta; finalist for the NCIB Award & NCB Award). Her new book, Risk, will be published by Black Ocean on Spring 2024. She was awarded a fellowship by UC Berkeley Art Research Center's Poetry & the Senses Program (in the program's inaugural year of 2020). Her poems have appeared on the Poetry Foundation website, on their podcast series Poetry Now, in Colorado Review, Fence, Iowa Review, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. Her creative nonfiction & poetry has appeared in Entropy; and her nonfiction at Harriet. Her critical essays appeared at Kenyon Review and Pleiades among other places. She is a recipient of fellowships from UC Berkeley's Arts and Research Center, Civitella Ranieri, Djerassi, and other artist residencies. She has taught in MFA programs, been a visiting poet at colleges, and teaches workshops through Omnidawn and elsewhere. She offers private consultations.   "The paradox of sex: what starts as corporeal turns to the in-corporeality of the interior. What begins as reach toward the other brings us back to ourselves, 'eyes closed, seeing night herons.' In this rigorously crafted book, Rusty Morrison observes the fraught and alluring givens of eroticism, the authority of the script we think we are following and the demands of generosity where 'expectation must be abandoned.' The script, in this case, is by George Bataille. His passages, fractured and dispersed, are assembled into a text that speaks to us as a lover, not a philosopher, might, that intimately and that audaciously, with all the punning, sparring, avowals and reversals we expect from erotic charge." - Melissa Kwasny "The openness of this sequence is heartfelt and heartbreaking...Morrison courts those regions of thinking and being that society instructs us to suppress or ignore; and she does so by declaring, 'Every object I am/is the rupturing it is built on.' At the same time, she writes, 'Pretend instead that words can make a humanness between us.' What started and moved this reader is the calm forceful music, its tonal shifts and use of different registers, with which Morrison proceeded, her willingness to 'plunge into the silence that most frightens us.'" - John Yau