by Thibault Raoult
Projective Industries 2008
Reviewed by Rick Marlatt

Everything Slurred

Printed in a July 2008 edition of only 100 copies, El P.E. is a 24-page collection of twelve often inscrutable collage-like meditations. Anchored by “Handle on Creatureoreure,” a mysterious, innovative shake at memory, mythology and sensory detail, El P.E. blends metaphorical reflections and picturesque motions with an uncompromising urge to strip language to its barest parts, demonstrating with letters the craft of a real visual artist.

“I’m inclined” explores the connection between personal, cultural and natural elements in the poet’s world:

I’m inclined to say there should be funk
In the constitution.

You have an accent
Of fennel.

Neonates  in spring have one thing on us—
Neonates.

After teasing us with the concrete notion of politics (see Parliament, Chocolate City), Raoult backs off into an equivocal yet profound reaction to human relations, before culminating with an indirectly related reflection on arbitrary stimuli. Though brief and driven by flashes, this piece is a wonderful showcase of Raoult’s ability to generate deep and varied meaning in limited space. His couplets are blips, or distant transmissions.

Raoult’s work is about triggering emotional and cognitive responses to unique combinations and translations of words and sounds. “Mal de Mar” is a first person riddle that simultaneously pursues earnest self-examination and parodies true confession:

I am for Damoclean dalles.
I am for RIND
I love three things.

And night comes first.
And rip places second.
I am to return.

Into muntin with my moue.
And bis is third.
I am due bittern.

While readers can easily lose themselves in El P.E.’s sensory, linguistic magic, Raoult’s collection is far more than a compilation of moving sounds and images; it’s a text full of symbols. It reminds that letters are symbols only (words larger ones), and reads with the meticulous, illuminating pace of an ancient religious text. The speaker hides behind his symbols, but also clings to them for life. Beautiful pieces such as “Pretty Reason Extensions [She]” are constructed with multiple brackets, arrows, parentheses and codes which add additional breadth to the reader’s experience. “PRENUP.EDU” applies resonances of E.E. Cummings and demonstrates a fusion of word, symbol and cryptogram:

         Clotting, clotting
DIVESTED
PRESENT
s’merVanna

          but the seeds, how they blink:

gainsaid [as silk?] – > un-well

and somewhere calm branch
grows mien-madia

unaba unafa-
LEADING

Dadew-beasts toward
Those (londons)

who balloon who
emphasize not a soul
dances anymore
manually, sugars.

Immediately, the way lines are formatted take focus in this piece. Unique choices in punctuation, capitalization, and overall structure precede the final four lines which attempt to creatively smooth out a cluster of almost obscene signs and movements. Yet his progression throughout is elegant, and undeniably musical. His commitment to a lack of clarity is alluring, a distrust of clarity or the notion that language can affirm anything for sure. Raoult employs a variety of symbols, fonts and visual indicators; in many, one can observe the hesitations, gestures, and private emotions which accompany all human communication, and reaffirm that all communication is fragmented, suggestive of meaning (however consciously fictive) and capable of music.

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