WALDMAN, Anne; GOMIS, Emma
A PUNCH IN THE GUT OF A STAR

A Punch in the Gut of a Star / Un Cop de Puny Al Ventre d’Una Estrella is a bilingual collaborative poetry chapbook that meditates on telepathy in the pandemic.

This chapbook is a new collaborative poetry collection by Anne Waldman and Emma Gomis written in English and Catalan. The chapbook aims for telepathy between two poets during a quasi-quarantine or what is colloquially referred to as a 'covid-pod.' On many levels this collaboration is a reminder of poetry's power and of its trajectory as true psychic shelter.

A Punch in the Gut of a Star speaks to everyone who has gone through the past few years. Those who have feared breathing the air and who have been cautious of the poisonous surfaces of all things. These poems layer our pandemic fears and juxtaposes them on the page while paying close attention to the binaries of translation and numerical marks between the two languages of the book. A Punch in the Gut of a Star is being adopted into a film-in-progress by Ed Bowes, titled “shoot.” Taking place in Boulder, Colorado, Emma Gomis and Anne Waldman perform these poems in a cabin and in groves of trees.

Waldman writes about their collaboration, “we were so happy with how the layered piece with these elements started to materialize and cohere on the page.” The title of the work came about, Waldman mentions, when the lines felt like punches. “The gut of a star seems a centrifugal force.” [publisher's note]

Published by Pamenar Press, 2022
Poetry