When Andy Warhol's a, A Novel was first published in 1968, The New York Times Book Review declared it "pornographic." Yet over four decades later, a continues to be an essential documentation of Warhol's seminal Factory scene. And though the book offers a pop art snapshot of 1960s Manhattan that only Warhol could capture, it remains a challenging read. Comprised entirely of unedited transcripts of recorded conversations taped in and around the Warhol Factory, the original book's tone varies from frenetic to fascinating, unintelligible to poetic.
No Work Finished Here: Rewriting Andy Warhol by Liz Worth attempts to change that, by appropriating the original text and turning each page into a unique poem. In remixing a into poetry using only words and phrases from each piece's specified page, Worth sets the scene for the reader, not unlike eavesdropping in an all-night diner, with poetry full of voices competing to be heard, hoping for just a sliver of attention at the end of a long, desperate night.
True to Worth's style, the poems in this collection hiss and pop with confessional whispers while maintaining the raw, distorted qualities originally captured on tape and documented in a, A Novel. Warhol fans, archivists, and academics, as well as readers of confessional and conceptual poetry and fiction, will jump at the chance to be a part of the Factory in-crowd in No Work Finished Here.
Praise for No Work Finished Here:
"What if you tore apart the city's tenderloin; if you seized its ephemera and--before burning all the sweet voodoo--collected the best, and most brilliant cuts? This is Liz Worth's stylish master-nightmare, No Work Finished Here. This is 'the start of something true.'" --Lynn Crosbie, author of Where Did You Sleep Last Night
"Liz Worth's collection of poems is a testament to both her artistry and daily discipline. In an age of diminished attention, her perseverance in daily poem-making by mining the same source over and over reminds us that artists can be a model of life without distraction--how to go deeper and deeper until you find yourself looking back at you." -- Heath Allen, composer of ANDY, A popera
