During the month of April, Mike Corrao will cover the work of Aase Berg, Johan Jönson, Helena Boberg, Sara Tuss Efrik all filtered through the lens of Johannes Göransson.
Scene: Sense Violence by Helena Boberg (tr. Göransson). The most recent environment materialized in the confines of this hadean zone.
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The intention of this work is not to lump all of these authors together as one aesthetic or methodology, but rather to use Göransson as a through-line to engage with the page as a surface. As this white matter playing host to an often necropastoral set of imagery. Jönson, Berg, Efrik, and Boberg each utilizing this medium in varied and nuanced ways.
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In the process of translation we see the formation of a new text. Undeniably tethered to the original, yet uniquely mutated to grab hold in another language. But regardless of the transformations that occur during this process, form is universal. The tight block structure of Jönson’s work or the spinal columnizing in New Quarantine, do not suffer the same malleability that their contents do. They remain in place, and thus our analysis can move beyond an explicit relationship with language-in-itself.
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In navigating Göransson’s work, we approach an architectural (or at least spatial) understanding of poetry / prose / literature / the book-object. We encounter each of these as an ambiguously traversable zone. The text becoming something that we can occupy. A bodily interior of its own. A fleshy cavity for us to creep towards the warm center of. Cozy between its organs.
Mike Corrao is the author of three novels, Man, Oh Man (Orson’s Publishing); Gut Text (11:11 Press) and Rituals Performed in the Absence of Ganymede (11:11 Press); one book of poetry, Two Novels (Orson’s Publishing); two plays, Smut-Maker (Inside the Castle) and Andromedusa (Forthcoming – Plays Inverse); and three chapbooks, Avian Funeral March (Self-Fuck); Material Catalogue (Alienist) and Spelunker (Schism – Neuronics). Along with earning multiple Best of the Net nominations, Mike’s work has been featured in publications such as 3:AM, Collagist, Always Crashing, and Denver Quarterly. His work often explores the haptic, architectural, and organismal qualities of the text-object. He lives in Minneapolis. @ShmikeShmorrao