An astounding 300 pages of poetry, criticism, interviews, experimental prose, translations. A special section on Michael Heller contains interview, critical essays, responses, and Heller's own work--what I find astonishing is the way Heller articulates issues of praxis--it is illuminating to see exactly how he goes about creating a text. Heller's eyes are open to literary antecedents and philosophical thought structures. Heller has already embarked on an autobiography, which arouses all sorts of tantalizing issues surrounding autobiography and the orderings and arrangings of self and cultural context. Autobiography is a construct which reflects cultural knowledge systems and belief structures. TALISMAN itself reflects a knowledge system--the range of works and authors comprise a history as well as a map or a landscape of this palpable moment in poetics.--Susan Smith Nash
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #4,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1995.