Mullen manages to fold words in ways they aren’t used to, resulting in language displayed like the dollar bill origami crane you got after the first tooth fairy came to visit; that striking sense of awe and understanding that words, like people, aren’t restricted to one identity.
— RyanThree important poetry collections brought together under one cover by Harryette Mullen, author of Sleeping with the Dictionary
if you turned down the media
so I could write a book
then you could look me up
in your voluminous recyclopedia
-from Muse & Drudge
Recyclopedia shows the extraordinary development of Harryette Mullen's career, in her books Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse & Drudge, all originally published in the 1990s and now available again to new readers. These prose poems and lyrics bring us into collision with the language of fashion and femininity, advertising and the supermarket, the blues and traditional lyric poetry. Recyclopedia is a major gathering of work by one of the most exciting and innovative poets writing in America today.
HARRYETTE MULLEN teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Sleeping with the Dictionary, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
“Mullen's is a stunningly lyrical voice, rich and resonant, engaged and engaging.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
“In her previous four collections, Harryette Mullen's influences have ranged from language poetry to the rhythms and playfulness of the black vernacular . . . Suffused with both politics and literary theory, Mullen's language refuses to be weighed down by either.” —The New York Times Book Review