goats & compasses

 

Actualities I

Transparent to the Stone
ISBN 978-0-9961938-9-4
$15, paperback

34 pages

Actualities II

2 Burned Hotels; Masses of Black & White
ISBN 978-1-7366902-5-3
$15, paperback
84 pages

Actualities III

Comic Earth; Bright Order of the Empty
ISBN978-8-9884732-1-3
$20, paperback
64 pages

Leonard Schwartz's trilogy Actualities is a 3 book spiral poem. Transparent, to the stone follows the movement of water through the multiple forms, narratives, and lives it makes possible, either overwhelming them or linking them together in the process. 2 Burned Hotels; Masses of Black & White plunges into the elements of wood and fire in its two distinct sections. With a letter press cover, graphic design elements woven into the writing, and its prelude in the earlier water work, the book makes the actualities tangible. Comic Earth; Bright Order of the Empty introduces the elements "earth" and "metal" into the song, where they join "water", "fire", and "wood" from the first two books, the better to chant consciousness's relationship to matter. Quotation, lyric, and the unnamable do not seek closure here–they direct our attention towards a sudden animism.