Visually arresting and utterly one-of-a-kind, Sarah J. Sloat's Hotel Almighty is a book-length erasure of pages from Misery by Stephen King, a reimagining of the novel's themes of constraint and possibility in elliptical, enigmatic poems. Here, joy would crawl over broken glass, if that was the way. Here, sleep is a circle whose diameter might be small, a circle pitifully small, a wrecked and empty hypothetical circle. Paired with Sloat's stunning mixed-media collage, each poem is a miniature canvas, a brief associative profile of the psyche-its foibles, obsessions, and delights.
Sarah J. Sloat splits her time between Frankfurt and Barcelona, where she works as a news editor. Her poetry, collage, and prose have appeared in The Offing, West Branch, Sixth Finch, The Journal and Diagram. Sarah is the author of five poetry chapbooks, including Heiress to a Small Ruin and Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair (Dancing Girl Press).
Title: Hotel Almighty
Author: Sloat, Sarah J.
ISBN: 9781946448644
Binding:
Publisher: Sarabande Books, Incorporated
Publication Date: 2020-10-01
Number of Pages: 104
Weight: 0.2271 kg
AIGA 50 Books 50 Covers of 2020 The New York Times Book Review, New & Noteworthy Poetry, from the Ancient Greeks to Billy Collins Library Journal, Versifying / Collection Development: Poetry Academy of American Poets, 2020 Featured Fall Books Kenyon Review's 2020 Holiday Reading Recommendations Neon Pajamas, Favorite Authors (and Their Books) That I Read in 2020 Hypoallergic, Typographic Eye Candy : 50 Standout Book Covers From 2020 Absolutely marvelous. -Mary Ruefle This book of erasure poems uses Stephen King's Misery as its source text, highlighting themes of captivity and imagination. Sloat reproduces the original pages she used, adorned with fanciful collages on the erased sections. - New and Noteworthy Poetry, from the Ancient Greeks to Billy Collins, The New York Times Book Review Sarah J. Sloat's debut poetry collection, Hotel Almighty, is a visual feast. This assemblage of erasure poems and full-color collages is a fantastical, Rubik's Cube of a delight. -Kelly Fordon, New York Journal of Books Sloat's brilliant erasures. . . are visual delights that transcend confinement. - Kenyon Review's 2020 Holiday Reading Recommendations, Kenyon Review Sarah J. Sloat's Hotel Almighty (Sarabande, Sept.) goes all out with erasure and mixed-media collage to reimagine Stephen King's Misery. - Versifying / Collection Development: Poetry by Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal Hotel Almighty is a collection full of possibility and surprise. Of yes, misery and confinement, but also of playfulness and hope. It's worth noting how unusual and thrilling it is to encounter a book of poems infused with so much color. The sophistication of the erasure pairs with the illustrative nature of collage to create a distinct mood, at times, like a subversive picture book for the Future Adult version of the kid drawing in the back of the room, who is too smart or dark or witty for the rest of the class. - Misery Loves Company: A Conversation with Sarah J. Sloat by J.M. Farkas, The Rumpus Sarah J. Sloat's visual spectacles feel like unique and refreshing dreamscapes. Where a table or desk transforms into a craft bonanza of vivid lines, vintage clippings, yarn, scissors, wallpaper, string. Hotel Almighty offers all of those things. Bring me erasure. Bring me poetry. Bring me analog collage. Bring me Misery on every damn page. - Favorite Authors (and Their Books) That I Read in 2020, Neon Pajamas Hotel Almighty will make your brain spin until the last page, weaving colorful paper cut-outs, vibrant dots, and gold threads with word-jewels excavated from Misery, bewildering you with a new sense of what poetry is capable of. -Rhino At a time when many contemporary poets experiment with and teach erasure as a poetic technique, Sloat's collection showcases the many potentials of the form. Sloat's visual compositions occur on three or four levels at once, as she aligns the forms of the source text, the verbal text, the collage, and the collection. I believe this multi-level resonance sets new parameters for poetry. With her flexibility with syntax and fluid subjects, Sloat forges new insights that call us to question the way we relate to what confines us, and to re-set the limits of a poem. I've loved reading and re-reading Hotel Almighty. I find something new each time I open the book, and I continue to learn from the box of many boxes Sloat presents here. -Diagram, online [Misery] explores the mode and function of artistic creation as it relates to life itself, the ways confinement and suffering can become means to radical opening. Sloat's Hotel Almighty internalizes all of this, both commenting and building on King's explorations in both the form and lyricism of her erasures. -Dream Pop Journal, online Sloat's work here belongs within the offbeat orthodoxy of found poetry; the popular label 'blackout poetry' certainly applies to her method of scratching out, painting over or otherwise obscuring printed text, thereby bringing novel messages to the surface. And yet these terms, which live in negative language, don't fully capture Sloat's sublime, unsettling outcomes. She coaxes Technicolor poetry from preexisting pages; new verse isn't merely found-as in stumbled upon-but unearthed. -The Curator [A]n innovative, compelling work of visual lyric. -Women's Voices for Change, online Hotel Almighty is a profound work of reinvention - from King's pop fiction to a hybrid work where houses grow wild with flowers, where one asks hell to subside a little (42), and where the reader enjoys every minute of the bizarre, vivid, delightful journey. -The Indianapolis Review This is the technical and dramatic pinnacle of erasure poetry. -Naoko Fujimoto Poetry & Graphic Poetry Sarah J. Sloat's erasure-collages create intimate and intricate pairings that ricochet back and forth between text and image. In one, a picture of a giant hand tenderly touching a tiny telephone speaks to the page's mournful question, 'If I could be / A dim shape slumped over / and round / Would that be so bad?' In another, the erased text ('The sound of the wind filled the phone / squeezing into the line / like a nerve awake at night') is translated into red stitches approaching, then encircling a tree. Hotel Almighty is a marvel. -Matthea Harvey
