Click through to read the full review of Derek White’s chapbook Bodh[i] Circu[it]s / Alg[a]e[bra] D[ra[in], the nineteenth in this full-press review of Calamari books.

For some reason, I’ve seen more than my fair share of circuit boards. I worked on an electronics manufacturing floor for awhile, long story short, but in any case I’ve spent some time staring into those green & metallic landscapes, mesmerized by their tiny-city implications. I don’t know how circuit boards function, what does what & how, but I get lost in them when I am close enough to their faces, when I take the time to dwell.

This is how it is for me, reading Derek White’s Bodh[i] Circu[it]s / Alg[a]e[bra] D[ra[in]. I don’t really know what I’m reading, what does what & how I’m supposed to unearth it from the visual aspects that White layers in (sometimes in heaping doses), but I can get lost in them for a time, attempting to sort the text from the images, or read them in collaboration, or understand what is saying what, how they were written, the cities that have been built.

There is actually such density in Bodh[i] Circu[it]s / Alg[a]e[bra] D[ra[in] that I can’t fully replicate any true excerpts here, so instead I’ll link to the online samples offered through the Calamari site, the only reading you can now get of this out of print title.

Now perhaps in the hands of a Blake Butler these texts would be understood & fervently captivating, the equivalent of an electrical engineer easily seeing into the levels of a circuit board, but I only perceive a fraction of what White most likely intends, & even at that I can only lose myself for a little bit before I grow weary.

Bound with circuitry elements instead of staples, Bodh[i] Circu[it]s / Alg[a]e[bra] D[ra[in] is a mildly mesmerizing place to look into, but the landscape has horizons too close for me to indulge in for too long, & I’m afraid I only saw a surface of moments, not the intricacies of White’s writing.

Next up, Peter Markus’ THE SINGING FISH & then 3RD BED [2].

Yes. Stay tuned.