{"product_id":"standard-american-english-9781933959504","title":"Standard American English","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"In STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH  writer and multidisciplinary artist Elisabeth Houston brings her readers deep into the world of baby  a persona she has been developing in performance contexts for nearly a decade. The poems in this debut collection emerge from the abject dialectic of babys psyche--where a self in formation staggers under the weight of sexual abuse  body image dysmorphia  rapacious materialism  fame obsession  and racial fetishism. What is witnessed here is the way late capitalism unfolds brutal games of power  affecting all dimensions of life  with the potential to consume and ravage individual actors  as well as entire communities and cultures. STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH is a blistering satire of contemporary American values. In the tradition of literary \"outlaws\" such as Kathy Acker  Marguerite Duras  and Jean Genet  Houston pulls out all the stops. STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH was selected by Tracie Morris in our 2020 Open Call. A magnificent upending of language.\"--Khadijah Queen \"This heartbreaking  experimental cycle of surrealist poems by Elisabeth Houston is a helluva ride in the Kathy Acker tradition of Blood and Guts in High School. As a meta-commentary and indictment of self-congratulatory New York cultural denizens  academia  art circles and romanticized self-harm  STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH considers how language and its resonances can hurt  box us in  destroy us even as it purports to make and save us. There are two primary characters in S.A.E.: Baby and the dissociating narrator that observes Babys life  never once intervening to help  to save. Using the particularities of various New York representations  we see how people fall through the cracks  pick themselves up  harm and judge themselves  harm and judge others. Who is Baby? Shes everyone we callously dont care about  everyone were too cute to embrace. This rollicking hybrid tour-de-force from Elisabeth Houston evokes introspections on society from Acker  Wanda Coleman  Alfred Hitchcock  Jennifer Jazz  Akilah Oliver and Natalie Wynn. Houston indicts every individuals displaced capacity for cruelty under the patina of hipness. And yet  we root for Baby  we hope for Baby  and in doing so  in the end  maybe theres hope for us.\"--Tracie Morris  author of Who Do with Words \"There are writers who write and use language that already exists and lead us into new ways of seeing. There are also writers who invent language and form who carve out words and names and experiences from earths substance and bring a new universe into existence. Elisabeth Houston is an interdisciplinary artist  a poet  and is such an inventor  a new voice to ready ourselves for  a voice we need. What I admire in this debut book of poetry is not only the satire  social commentary  the swagger  the baby persona  the language fused from pop culture  but also the danger this writer flirts with  through subject matter  race and feminism  bulimia and sexual abuse and more... that in this books great moments exposes and makes truth stare at you unabashed and it is moving.\"--Pamela Sneed  author of Funeral Diva Poetry. California Interest. African \u0026amp; African American Studies. Womens Studies. LGBTQAI Studies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67923832373301,"sku":"ByrdShop_1933959509","price":246.09,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781933959504.jpg?v=1794116557","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/standard-american-english-9781933959504","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}