Vexations

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 56 pages
Publication date: 31 March 2023
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

In this experimental book-length poem, a mother and daughter embark on a captivating journey through a mysterious and speculative world. Annelyse Gelmans Vexations is a surreal and glitchy exploration of empathy, ecology, and precarity, woven into a narrative that follows a mother and daughter as they navigate a world of social and economic collapse in search of a post-capitalist safe haven.

As they traverse this challenging landscape, the daughter faces a condition that affects her empathic abilities, making her vulnerable to emotional contagion. The book is titled and structured after Erik Saties composition of the same name, which demands patience, endurance, and concentration from both its audience and its players. Gelmans Vexations employs repetition and variation to captivate the readers attention, creating an ambient poetry that draws on the aesthetic qualities of drone music and sampling voices and sounds to create a rich literary backdrop filled with pulsing psychedelic detail.

Through their shared experiences, the mother and daughter confront the complexities of human relationships, the fragility of the natural world, and the search for meaning in a world that is constantly evolving. Vexations is a testament to Gelmans talent as a poet and her ability to create a powerful and immersive literary experience that challenges and expands our understanding of the world.

Weight: 122g
Dimension: 165 x 242 x 7 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226826110