A series of prose poems set in Iceland paired with a group of lyric experiments that stage the problem of the lyric "I," this compilation evokes a time in which the romance and astonishments of a foreign land are challenged by the difficulties of earning a living as a foreigner.
Poetry. Exactly how much does language shape perception? In READING EMILY DICKINSON IN ICELANDIC, Heisler explores the materiality of language with a collection of prose poems inspired by her nine years in Iceland, a time in which the romance and astonishments of a foreign land were challenged by the difficulties of earning a living as a foreigner. The narrator struggles with just how deeply language conditions what she can see and, as she tries to learn Icelandic, the blind spots proliferate. Heisler's poems are preoccupied with the materiality of voice as it surfaces in the failures (and pleasures) of translation.
