Perennial Fashion Presence Falling
“some ekphrastic evening, this’ll be both criticism and poetry and failing that fall somewhere that seem like in between.” So writes poet, critic, theorist, and MacArthur fellow Fred Moten in his latest poetry collection perennial fashion presence falling.
Much like the poems found in The Feel Trio (Letter Machine 2014), which was a National Book Award finalist, and All That BeautyWithin this collection, the poems hold an innate quantum curiosity about the infinitude of the present and the ways in which one could observe the history of the future. Poems beget poems, overflowing and flowering, urging deeper etymological investigations. In perennial fashion presence falling, Moten approaches the sublime, relishing that intermediary space of microtonal thought.
Fred Moten teaches courses and conducts research in black studies, performance studies, poetics and critical theory at New York University. He is the author of Arkansas (Pressed Wafer, 2000), In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (University of Minnesota Press, 2003), I ran from it but was still in it. (Cusp Books, 2007), Hughson's Tavern(Leon Works, 2008), B Jenkins (Duke University Press, 2009), The Feel Trio (Letter Machine Editions, 2014), which was a National Book Award finalist. He also is the co-author with Stefano Harney of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study (Minor Compositions, 2013).