Murmur in the Inventory

Poetry. "erica lewis's MURMUR IN THE INVENTORY diagrams 'a dislocated cloud.' It immerses the reader in residues, resonances, and echoes. A roving, dispersed consciousness haunts relational spaces. The pronouns infuse and inhabit one another: 'i'm counting on your lips.' A sound-map of changing bodies, it holds true in your mouth."—Eric Baus"About cruel Love I always complain—goes a fragment of Troubadour lyric. While reading erica lewis's MURMUR I was thinking of this tradition of singing about the absent and disappointing other or lover or version of oneself that can't/won't show up.... In this vicinity lewis registers a problem of listening, but no one can hear it, while directives, proclamations, lies and one-sided conversation rain down. Because 'the way it echoes you / is to echo you' in this 'cage of fire things' there is no way out except 'to speak to where the echo is / we take the shape of the thing that moves us'—we follow that shape as it moves through this writing, and are moved."—Susan Gevirtz