Publisher's Synopsis
Poetry. In nine Cantos--spheres of hell--Roger Farr's I AM A CITY STILL BUT SOON I SHAN'T BE metabolizes the modernist long poem to provide a new, psychogeographical I--witness account of the post--Real city. Avoiding the worn paths of the flaneur, Farr works with pre-conceptualist footage of Vancouver shot in 1973, later discovered in a dream. New York becomes an elegant incubator for the new avant-gardes, who are preparing for another civil war. Berlin is a nightclub, or a mall, that kettles its negations. Nanaimo is a necropolis seen through a lens held by the hand of a dead poet. Meanwhile, a statue of Artemis explodes from the streets in Siracusa, setting off a riot during the 2010 Olympics. Throughout, bodies fail to align with their coordinates. Urban streams, floods of capital, and other libidinal flows offer multiple routes through the contemporary metropolis.
