Next Arrivals

Robin Ouzman Hislop's poetry is certainly in dialogue with some of the key architects of the 'poetics of indeterminacy' - both the Modernist strands represented by the likes of Beckett and Stein, and the postmodernist strands represented, initially, by Ashberry and Antin, and later on by poets like Charles Bernstein and Ron Silliman. Next Arrivals, however, also explores and responds to themes only rarely addressed by 20th century experimental poets. Hislop is keenly interested in exploring poetically a range of phenomena loosely related to 'the New Sciences'. His interest is not that of the wide-eyed, but willfully naïve, classical scientist. He understands humanity's darker impulses - particularly our darker collective impulses - too well to buy into the idyllic marriage vows these days being exchanged between the New Sciences and extreme capitalism - however loved-up the happy couple appear to be in public.