Contemporary Poetry

224 contemporary poetry

the most passionate hoax. Categories are preparation for

thinking, but the mighty superinformationists are no Boy

Scouts.^42

This combination of different textures of writing and the pressures
exerted by rapid movements between different forms of language
are evident in Clover’s volume The Totality for Kids ( 2006 ).^43 In
‘Early Style’ language is presented ‘promenading’ around ‘the
failures of the codex’ (p. 8 ). ‘Whiteread Walk’ takes on the role
of nineteenth-century Charles Baudelaire’s Parisian fl âneur, or
walker of the cityscape. Strange and unexpected formulations
of language appear as the speaker is identifi ed with the ‘illbiqui-
tous promenaders’ near the square, which becomes part of what
Clover refers to as ‘social forms of grieving’ (p. 56 ). Far from being
offered a direct spatial commentary upon Georges Haussmann’s
Parisian boulevards, we are thrown into sonic overload in ‘hardcore
Autumnophage echolocation’ (p. 56 ). This phrase draws reference
to the sensory overload of extreme music in a neologism which
conveys seasonal shifts and repeated sound. The poem then closes
with a visual implant of ‘Brooklyn Bombs over Baghdad’ (p. 56 ).
‘Whiteread Walk’ is a poem which multitasks: it simultaneously
explores city space in tandem with a focus on American foreign
policy.
Finally, Claudia Rankine’s Please Don’t Let Me Be Lonely ( 2004 )
examines the possibilities for autobiography by combining the
format of her work with media imagery and commentary.^44 Diverse
texts ranging from photographs, TV news, labels on pharmacy
bottles, Google and medical textbooks prompt the telling of a
personal meditation which splays in different directions. The nar-
rative of Mr Tools, ‘the only person in the world’ (p. 71 ) with an
artifi cial heart, prompts one such meditation:

Mr Tools had the ultimate tool in his body. He felt its heavi-

ness. The weight on his heart was his heart. All his apparatus

• artifi cial heart, energy coil, battery and controller – weighed
  more than four pounds. The whirr, if you are not Mr Tools,
  is detectable only with a stethoscope. For Mr Tools that
  whirr was his sign that he was alive. (p. 71 )