Wanderlust #2, redacted poem by Christine Reuter, 2012
My most sincere apologies for not drawing your attention to Christine Reuter’s astropoetry before today. Like most good things in life, I discovered Reuter’s work through twitter, where she posts as @tychogirl. Once I’d started reading her poetry, I couldn’t stop. I love the tension she creates between suppressed and revealed text, past and present, science and humanities. Young Ladies’ Astronomy was one of the best poems I read in 2012, partly for its beauty, partly for its subversiveness. Aside from the literary or political merits of Reuter’s work, I find her poems very satisfying as objects (potential objects?). Even in digital form, I can appreciate the layering of media and am continually delighted by her appropriation of original form and illustrations (the globe tethered is a good example of this). This is a poetry I would love to touch.
