Rag Cosmology | Robinsong, Erin

Poetry. Environmental Studies. The ecological is personal; the personal is ecological. RAG COSMOLOGY is a pulsating meditation on this most intimate relationship. These poems inject pleasure deep into the tissues of our language and state, countering fatalist narratives with the intimacy of entanglement and engagement.



Green extravagant mind wet and moving

two weeks ago I arrived here

simply to shake in the green plosions



'Have you ever had the feeling of being spoken by a branch, a dress, a late slant of light? Then open this book for deeper information about how sensing and moving among the world's elements is a cosmic work of images, where touching is a kind of seeing, and thinking is a kind of kissing. For Erin Robinsong, being in language together is a chosen act of joy, a refusal of the imposed debt and dross of the bankers. These poems walk into largesse.'--Lisa Robertson



'RAG COSMOLOGY is spellbinding. The poems in this stunning debut collection are acrobatic and kinetic, alive with immediacy and sensuality. Experimental in design, yet deeply resonant and familiar in subject matter, Erin Robinsong writes with skillful chiaroscuro, bringing light into darkness, and darkness into light. Reading this collection felt like a breathless game of hide-and- seek--playful, thrilling and haunting, too.'--Ruth Ozeki



'Robinsong strews behind her punchlines of attention, each one a call to do the work of this present moment. She rubs the animal words against her experience until she can't recognize them any longer, until the separations they used to conjure disappear. Sex is never far, these words are also a way of touching and being touched, an ecology of creatures that smile even when the passing is violent and sad.'--Mike Hoolboom



'Erin Robinsong's long-desired debut,