Publishers Weekly Review (Aug 17th issue)
The Plot Genie Gillian Conoley. Omnidawn (IPG, dist.), $14.95 (136p)
ISBN 978-1-890650-42-1
Conoley’s sixth collection-which takes its title from a plot-generating system devised in the 1930s by silent screenwriter Wycliffe A. Hill-is a book of many sources (ancient and contemporary, cerebral and tabloid) that all point toward cinema. Archie, Betty and Veronica appear in one poem, while another features the less likely trio of Walt Whitman, Paul Bunyan and Aristotle, all of them eerily imprisoned by an elaborately illusive studio system. There’s an atmosphere of decay throughout, replete with “chambers dim with histories,” and “locusts/ without end.” At its best, the book reads like an exceptional film noir projected onto the mind’s eye. “The world is a weird luminescence,” writes Conoley. “A greenish glow, unhinged,” Experimental poetry fans and cinephiles will find much that haunts and stimulates. (Sept.)
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Gillian’s readings for THE PLOT GENIE:
October 28, Tuesday: University of San Francisco, Xavier Room, Fromm Hall, 7:30 pm.
October 30, Friday: California College of the Arts, San Francisco, 3 pm.
November 6, Friday: Studio One, 365 45th St., Oakland, 7:30 pm.
November 10, Tuesday: Moes Books, Berkeley, with other Omnidawn
authors Bin Ramke, Donald Revell, Myung Mi Kim, Michelle Taransky,
Richard Greenfield, 7 pm.
November 13, Friday: DeYoung Museum, with Rae Armantrout, San Francisco, 7 pm.
November 14, Saturday: Corte Madera Book Passage, for W.W. Norton
anthology American Hybrid, with Paul Hoover, Stephen Ratcliffe, Martha
Ronk, Carol Snow, 7 pm, Corte Madera, CA
November 16, Monday, Loyola Maramount University, Los Angeles, 7 pm.
February 17, Wednesday, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 7 pm.
February 25, Thursday, Sonoma State University, Schulz Information
Center, Room 3001, 6 pm.
March 4, Thursday, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 7 pm
March 5-6, Friday & Saturday, University of Colorado at Boulder
Literary and Small Press Festival.
March 17, Wednesday, University of California at Berkeley extension, 7 pm.
March 31, Wednesday, University of Richmond at Richmond, VA, 7 pm.
April 8-10, Denver, Associated Writing Programs
April 14, Wednesday, Otis College, Los Angeles, 7 pm.
April 15, Thursday, University of Southern California, 4 pm.
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