Versus: Last Poems : 2018-2023

Loney, Alan

Plumb Press

In search of the book as a work of art

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Opifex

The Ancient Greek philosopher Herakleitos wasn't called obscure for no reason. Allegedly Socrates himself read the manuscript and said you'd need to be a professional pearl diver to get to the bottom of it. And he had the whole book and spoke the same language as Herakleitos, something you can 100% rely on not happening these days. Evidently that's not stopped anybody from making the attempt, however - even if they don't all end up clutching their pearls. That's where Alan Loney comes in. What he has done in this book is to attend, in an utterly unique fashion, to the materiality of this situation from the pure position of a poet and a printer. 
As Ted Jenner puts it: 
"What are the barriers to engaging with Herakleitos for the neophyte in Greek with no Latin? What is particularly valuable about this book is its bibliograph- ical approach to ancient texts and their transmission, an approach which is all too often overlooked by contemporary scholars. A background in printing and a fascination with the book as a cultural artefact have served our author very well indeed. This is a book which will prove to be invaluable for all graduates embarking on a study of any branch of literature, the texts of which stem from ancient handwritten documents. Are they to rely solely (as did I, even as a post- graduate) on the sometimes dubious authority of the modern editor and their selective critical apparatus?" 
The results that Loney achieves are literally incredible: what is it that we know of Herakleitos other than misrepresentation, hearsay, and fantasm? Until you've read this book, we can almost guarantee that you really have no idea.

Not Reading Herakleitos

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

re.press

Literary Nonfiction. Beginning is impossible. To imagine a new work is to know that it is impossible to begin. I cannot think of origins. They are too far back. They are far too close. One is not only already on the way, one's 'beginning' was never one's own, nor was it theirs who gave you birth, and surrounded you with the unfulfillable hope of their hopeless longings. So, how do I understand all these stops and starts—the unstoppable fragmentary sputterings of the uninterruptedly continuous.

Beginnings

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Otis Books | Seismicity Editions

Poetry. "Loney is an 'early conceptualist'. CRANKHANDLE is a conceptually thick book, a book of thought, or as Frost might say, a book of 'thinks', that challenges writing's potential triviality on a word–by–word basis."—Michael Farrell

Crankhandle (Notebooks)

Poetry

Cordite Books

Moving prose memoir exploring the death of a school friend in the 1953 Tangiwai rail disaster and, at the same time, the author's own life and mortality.

The Falling: A Memoir

Auckland University Press

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Books by Loney, Alan