The Mt. Sinai Poems

"'The Mt. Sinai Poems' by Erik Vatne is a short--but densely packed--cycle of ten-line poems written in the form of cryptic notes to an unnamed 'doctor' on various themes that are always at the heart of what Vatne does as a poet or visual artist: love, loss, and language; specifically the way it is used and misused to communicate and express the ineffable and impossible, which are often revealed as codes hidden within the texts and which find expression as sonic and visual keys to these secret heart of poetry and self. This is Vatne's first book since the publication of his highly acclaimed 400+ page book of poems, 'Mormon Heroin', and continues to develop a poetics based on the simple epigraph by Carl Jung, which suggests that every poem--on some level--is an act of erasure--and that it is a 'psychic break' from the consciousness of the poet that once released takes on an autonomous role in the world."