ta o/j
poetry chapbook
limited print edition now available
The following review was Published on Reedsy, Sept. 12, 2025
Must read 🏆
Experimental poetry
at its most sophisticated. Something entirely new, but with resonances across
histories of the lyric and avant-garde.
Synopsis:
poetry chapbook of
experimental poems
micro light dog
with some nice art
The experimental
approach of sean g. meggeson's ta o/j is a welcome subversion
of current or popular poetic conventions while also echoing a history of
complex, sparse uses of the page and scripted sound. This collection of poems
challenges readerly relationships with language and sense-making. And it ultimately
yields a fresh and fruitful argument for poetry’s capacity to interrupt our
complacency in everyday writing and speech.
The book invites
comparisons to twentieth century descendants of Dada. But like those
descendants, meggeson's poems are constructed with greater intention and
curation than their forebears. The sharp typographical play on the page is
reminiscent of avant-garde poets like N.H. Pritchard. The conscious endeavor to
elicit readerly performance reminds one of poets like Bob Cobbing. One could
point to any one of the more contemporary soundscape-minded or performance
poets. But meggeson's work is special in its ability to conjure up clear
images, movement, and thematic connections between utterances. These elements,
along with the elegant brevity of each poem, suggests a fusion of anglophone
avant-garde influences with those of image-focused, short-lyric forms like
haiku and tanka. The poems are often surprising and revelatory in the
associations they make between pieces, and the surprising and revelatory
meeting of many poetic reference points surely fosters this effect.
There is purpose in
the proximity of seemingly disparate words and spacing between individual
letters. The key to comprehending the sheet music here is to read it out loud.
Sometimes, the pieces create a clear sensory experience. Other times, the white
space insists that the reader take or hold a breath mid-line, mid-word. In some
places, strings of homophones, anagrams, and words linked via other (sometimes
slanted) similarities unearth hidden connection. No matter which experiment
meggeson attempts and no matter how the poet directs or opens our engagement
with the page, each poem is individualistic as an event. And the
reader-as-performer is conscious of their collaboration in this event,
occasionally toward meaning, but more often toward impression or rattling or
emotional awareness.
Reading
meggeson's ta o/j is like alternately taking a breath of fresh
air and welcoming a jolt of electricity. There are places where the collection
gently prods a paradigm to shift. There are places where the poems jar us from
our reliance on comfortable syntax and into something more exciting. But
throughout the book, meggeson is consistent in making the reader an active
contributor and collaborator in the poetic experiment. A must read for poets,
performers, and lovers of literary complexity.
Reviewed by
Hello! I am
writer/scholar with an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Literature from
Miami University. My book reviewing interests include poetry, graphic novels,
nonfiction, and children's & YA literature.
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