We talk to award-winning poet, novelist and academic Ben Lerner upon publication of his new book 'No Art' - making available for the first time in the UK his previous three collections of poetry, alongside new material.
Widely celebrated for his two recent novels, 'Leaving the Atocha Station' and '10:04', Lerner describes how poetry is in fact the genre closest to his heart and the mode that underpins all of his writing. Taking us back to his earliest published work, which explored themes of suburban violence and malaise alongside experimenting with the different kinds of language to which he was becoming exposed, Lerner narrates his journey through to more recent work, including nonfiction piece 'The Hatred of Poetry' - in which he presents a theory of the virtual and actual in poetry. Throughout, we meet a writer who marries the critical with the personal, for whom experimentation and flux are the norm, and whose commingling of different genres doesn't stop him from being amongst the foremost practitioners within each.
'No Art' collects the three volumes of poetry from Lerner available in the US - The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path - alongside new work, and is published in the UK by Granta.
For more about the book and to buy, visit www.foyles.co.uk/all?term=9781...