MINATO NO HITO, Publisher, Japan, 2002
ISBN 4-89629-113-1
Available at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/mamaist-Alan-Botsford-Saitoh/dp/4896291131/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=alan+botsford&qid=1590479737&s=books&sr=1-5
Review in Kyoto Journal
"mamaist: learning a new language" may be one of the first books of poems to transpire from our global civilization. Appropriately enough, the author presents it as a new language, one he calls "mamaist." But there is no manifesto here, rather a joyful romp in language that is constructive rather than destructive, nurturing rather than negative. In other words, it's mamaist, not dadaist!
The first poem, daringly called "Nothing," opens combatively: "I have nothing to say for myself./ I believe in nothing...." It then continues for fifty-nine lines of verbal slapstick, handing the reader all the takes on "nothing" that constitute our routine responses to humdrum life. When all aspects of "nothing" seem to have been explored, the last five lines take a turn that will astonish anyone whose mind is alert to the spiritual dimensions of the language of Being, whether that person's connection to it is Buddhist, Hindu, or the mystical expressions of Christian, Judaic, or Islamic traditions. There is even room for the purely secular impulse. Clearly, to do this is a major achievement.
The arrangement of the twenty-eight poems offers a glimpse of the poet's experiences that formed mamaist language. In the second poem the reader meets "the poet after being called to his vocation" From there one follows along through various conditions and situations that the poet confronts as he lives his world and learns its language. The poem which, for me, contains the most hilarious confrontation of all, is the story of "U" and "I" who skate along on the absurdity of language as it bends, or is bent, to reveal the meaning of words in a reality not normally seen.
You don't know where you have been in these poems until after you get there. This makes re-reading another trip, and one with manifold rewards. It is a journey of discovery that seems to surprise the poet as much as the reader.
This first book is, I believe, an important beginning for an important writer. The distinctive quality of voice and the content of his work possess a moral tone that revels in the birth of words and meaning.
The first poem, daringly called "Nothing," opens combatively: "I have nothing to say for myself./ I believe in nothing...." It then continues for fifty-nine lines of verbal slapstick, handing the reader all the takes on "nothing" that constitute our routine responses to humdrum life. When all aspects of "nothing" seem to have been explored, the last five lines take a turn that will astonish anyone whose mind is alert to the spiritual dimensions of the language of Being, whether that person's connection to it is Buddhist, Hindu, or the mystical expressions of Christian, Judaic, or Islamic traditions. There is even room for the purely secular impulse. Clearly, to do this is a major achievement.
The arrangement of the twenty-eight poems offers a glimpse of the poet's experiences that formed mamaist language. In the second poem the reader meets "the poet after being called to his vocation" From there one follows along through various conditions and situations that the poet confronts as he lives his world and learns its language. The poem which, for me, contains the most hilarious confrontation of all, is the story of "U" and "I" who skate along on the absurdity of language as it bends, or is bent, to reveal the meaning of words in a reality not normally seen.
You don't know where you have been in these poems until after you get there. This makes re-reading another trip, and one with manifold rewards. It is a journey of discovery that seems to surprise the poet as much as the reader.
This first book is, I believe, an important beginning for an important writer. The distinctive quality of voice and the content of his work possess a moral tone that revels in the birth of words and meaning.
-2003
*
Review in The Japan Times (excerpt)
"Like the Dadaists his title borrows and departs from, [Botsford] throws out convention to create a new art... [I]t's a revitalization of old forms... [that] breathes new life into words by the sheer brilliance of his constructions...consciously or unconsciously embracing the feminine principle of receptivity and nonlinear thought."
-2003
