Boat

LONGLISTED FOR THE PAT LOWTHER MEMORIAL AWARD

From the author of The Baudelaire Fractal, a poetry classic, with new work

In 2004, boldly original poet Lisa Robertson published a chapbook, Rousseau’s Boat, poems culled from years of notebooks that are, nevertheless, by no means autobiographical. In 2010, she expanded the work into a full-length book, R’s Boat. During the pandemic, she was drawn back into decades of journals to shape Boat. These poems bring fresh vehemence to Robertson’s ongoing examination of the changing shape of feminism, the male-dominated philosophical tradition, the daily forms of discourse, and the possibilities of language itself.

“Robertson has quietly but surely emerged as one of our most exciting and prolific philosophers—I mean poets. Interested in architecture, weather systems, fashion, autobiography, gender, the classics, and just about everything else, she manages to irradiate her subjects with calm, wit, and astonishing beauty. Robertson’s style is both on splendid display and under fierce interrogation in her latest book, R’s Boat.” —Kenyon Review

“In R’s Boat, Robertson has penned a post-conceptual, post-lyric, relentlessly self-examining performance of memory and sincerity that manages, remarkably, to be both theoretically concerned and deeply emotive.” —Harvard Review

“R’s Boat grapples with form, the constraint of language and tradition, and the challenge to avoid anything that might exist as template. The poems examine feminism, discourse, the body, and poetry itself through sumptuous, seductive language.” —American Poets

AUTHOR

Lisa Robertson

Lisa Robertson lives in the Vienne region of France. Her most recent books of poetry are Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, which was selected by the New York Times as one of the 100 best books of 2010, and R’s Boat, shortlisted for The Believer’s 2011 Poetry award. In 2006, Bookthug published The Men: a Lyric Book.

Reviews

‘This is the third installment in an expanding project, begun in 2004, based on what the experimental poet calls “indexical readings” of her daily notebooks. Drawn from a combination of old and new sample of the latter, two new sections, “The Hut” and “The Tiny Notebooks of Night,” showcase the Baudelaire Fractal author’s trademark lyric inscrutability.’ – Emily Donaldson, The Globe & Mail

“Boat plays with memory and nostalgia; trawling through Robertson’s journals, the collection’s patchwork recreates the disjunctive ambiguity of one life-history.” – Cecily Fasham, Oxford Review of Books

“Lisa Robertson’s Boat works against the certainties much poetry strives to achieve.” – Dan Beachy-Quick, Poetry Foundation

“For Robertson, drifting is both a practice and a style.” – Andrea Brady, London Review of Books