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The Grand Complication

BY Devin King

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Not available for purchase.

ISBN: 9780999719855 (2019)

Says John Tipton, “Devin King’s Grand Complication is a dizzy fugue of forms–regular stanzas in radical variety. And the sources of its argument are just as varied–The Thebaid of Statius, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Melrose Place. It’s reminiscent of Zukofky’s omnivorous, inventive formalism. King orchestrates actors and narratives into a weltering long poem: William leads stoners to his apartment, thinking Julia will follow, but instead, she leads Abbie into Luke’s room and Mike follows, though Mike had flirted with Julia before she jumped in the pool while Amphiaraus was swallowed by the earth. I know. It’s complicated.” Replete with astoundingly beautiful thought-images, The Grand Complication is King’s fourth book and first masterpiece.

Devin King is the poetry editor of the Green Lantern Press and the author of CLOPS, The Resonant Space, and These Necrotic Ethos Come the Plains.

Reviews
Eleni Sikelianos:

Life on earth was a hot mess for Oedipus’s sons and daughters. Could there be a more fitting time to revisit the Theban cycles? In Devin King’s surprising, lively recasting, the ground is constantly grounded and slipping out from under your feet at once, a way to understand what it’s like to be alive. As a bonus (the bonus that is poetry), King works some of the most astoundingly beautiful thought-images through the text: “Children outside my window given / meaning by me are given meaning where they come / from, where they go. It never ends. So this poem.”

John Tipton:

Devin King’s Grand Complication is a dizzy fugue of forms–regular stanzas in radical variety. And the sources of its argument are just as varied–The Thebaid of Statius, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Melrose Place. It’s reminiscent of Zukofky’s omnivorous, inventive formalism. King orchestrates actors and narratives into a weltering long poem: William leads stoners to his apartment, thinking Julia will follow, but instead, she leads Abbie into Luke’s room and Mike follows, though Mike had flirted with Julia before she jumped in the pool while Amphiaraus was swallowed by the earth. I know. It’s complicated.