Martine Bellen

Martine Bellen's THE VULNERABILITY OF ORDER brings to contemporary poetics an acute, agile intelligence revealed in a dazzling array of linguistic orders, as vulnerable as they are powerful. --Ann Lauterbach

TALES OF MURASAKI AND OTHER POEMS

Out of the intervals, out of the body of words, arises a wonderfully rich music that "never stops being magic, not quite green but it created a before, a bus stop." --Rosmarie Waldrop ...A historian as steeped in the montage of character as Susan Howe or Guy Davenport. --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

PLACES PEOPLE DARE NOT ENTER: POEMS

Martine Bellen is a poet of refreshing complexity. [Her poems] are full of surprises. --Jackson Mac Low

Forthcoming: 2X(SQUARED)

Praise for 2X(SQUARED):

2X(SQUARED) is a zany, wise, moving, beautifully written life investigation of sorts. I laughed out loud. That poet Bellen has a hell of an imagination.
—Kate Lardner, author of SHUT UP HE EXPLAINED: THE MEMOIR OF A BLACKLISTED KID

Smart, funny, at once spare and lyrically lush, this mythic tale of a lost girl stalking her lost double will pull you delightedly along with its swift narrative—pull you up short when it makes you stop and think. Martine Bellen is an astonishing writer.
—Rilla Askew, author of HARPSONG and THE MERCY SEAT

In this work is some of the most beautiful and intuitively provocative language of anything I have read.
—Ken Keegan

Nora comes across a newspaper article about her lost twin that sets in motion her search for her doppelgänger and thrusts her from the safe island life that she has created and into a sweeping surrealist escapade, buried in the depths of an undifferentiated dream of ocean. Drifting through the foggy myths of her past, she practices spycraft and lessons of Dōgen Zenji and follows her guardian angel stepmother’s advice that when traveling to lands unknown, always bring bread, milk, and ham (gifts for spontaneous bribes). Veils of betrayal and isolation are lifted as Nora navigates systems of story (fairytale and science); belief and faith (spiritual and mythological); and reality (phenomenological and truth). As in many travel odysseys, the fictions of space, time, and being are placed under a microscope and an ever-unraveling solitary journey loosens onto an always uncanny, sometime hilarious, interdependent adventure.

WORLD PREMIERE OF AH! WAS ON SEPTEMBER 16, 17, & 18 AT REDCAT, LOS ANGELES

AH! is inspired by THE DIAMOND SUTRA and explores the nature of impermanence, perception, duality, space/time, and faith/compassion. Language and music emerge from a common origin in AH! as wordsoundswordssounds is being realized in performances and interactive mobile media designed to reposition the audience's experience to the creation of the opera. The performances at REDCAT (see sidebar link) featured David Rosenboom (see sidebar link) and ten collaborating composer-performers: Ivan Carames Bohigas (Spain), Michael Foumai (US-Hawaii), Alex Kotch (US-North Carolina), Claudio Maldonado (Argentina-Patagonia),Vedran Mehinovic (Bosnia), Natalie Oram (UK), Doo Jin Park (Korea), Jeronimo Rachenberg (Mexico), Diana Syrse Valdes Rosado (Mexico), Xiaolang Zhou (China) and was directed by renowned experimental theater director Travis Preston (see sidebar link). The presentations of AH! are made possible by the generous support of The Evelyn Sharp Foundation and Transatlantic Arts Consortium. For more information visit: www.Ah-Opera.org.