Jewish Daily Forward Lauds Poetry Book by UA’s Lazer

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A cultural critic in The Jewish Daily Forward has named “N18 (Complete),” a collection of poems by Hank Lazer, as one of five favorite works of poetry in 2012.

Lazer is associate provost for academic affairs and executive director of Creative Campus at The University of Alabama.

“Hank Lazer’s ‘N18’ — a collection of hand-written shape poems reflect author’s interest in what he terms ‘vectored thinking,’ “a movement of thoughts across the surface of consciousness,” wrote Jake Marmer in a December 2012 post in The Forward. “Lazer’s poems look like textual paintings and read like musical ensembles.”

Marmer reviewed “N18” in June 2012. In that review, he stated: “We associate the best literature with amnesia: While the book is open, we forget ourselves, curled up on a couch while the world melts away. Going through Hank Lazer’s latest poetry collection, ‘N18,’ the reader is likely to experience precisely the opposite: Instead of a sense of escape, Lazer’s poems stimulate acute self-awareness. Moreover, through the act of reading and thinking, they flex the atrophied muscles of consciousness.”

“N18 (Complete),” the 18th of 20 handwritten notebook projects, is an extended exploration of the relations between shape and meaning. The book is a facsimile of Lazer’s notebooks. It was published by Singing Horse Press in 2012. Lazer has published 17 books of poetry and edits the Modern and Contemporary Poetics Series for The University of Alabama Press.