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Bervin, Jen. Nets. Brooklyn, New York: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2004-$10.00 paper (ISBN 0-9727684-3-2), 130 pages.
A palimpsest is a manuscript whose original text has been erased, or effaced by time, and superseded by a later writing. Whether or not traces of the original remain visible beneath the subsequent text, the first author's language haunts and, as is the case in Jen Bervin's Nets, informs the reading of the second. In her working note to Nets, Bervin explains, "When we write poems, the history of poetry is with us, preinscribed in the white of the page." In this book, the sonnets of William Shakespeare provide not only a historical backdrop, but a visual context as well. Selected sonnets have been reprinted...