Diane Ward is among those rare poets...who have found new
ways to address the political in lyric forms, creating a body of verse
which opens the politics of language and consciousness to us rather than
assuming to instruct.
--A.L. Nielsen on Relation
Diane Ward's new book ushers us into an imaginary movie, only to tell
us we have never left. The precise declarative elegance of Ward's lines
both critique the social forces of the spectacle and situate the reader
in an autonomous milieau, at once public and private. Ward has discovered
the means of exploiting poetic language which turns language into a moral
force. She offers us, in our collaborative improvising as readers, a dignity
equal to the authority of the writer. Her writing provides us with the
means to name what otherwise impedes change. This Imaginary Movie
is "no skin deep technology/ but a connected sifting of last things."
--Jerry Estrin
This is writing that is "skeptical spaces." It is visceral in
a way that is out in front of (the persons) flesh, which is present only
in negative space. Imaginary Movie sees by being without a visual
construction. It makes motions that are "assenting hierarchy"
'imitating', which is actually resisting, that form (which is already
formed).
--Leslie Scalapino
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