Xo - A Tale For The New Atlantis by André Spears

When I first read Xo: A Tale for the New Atlantis, it just blew my socks off—Homer's cadence and epic sweep, hallucinatory Phil Dickian channelings, hysterically funny post-Pynchonesque deconstructions of American materialism, the swing of the Beats organically fused with Cecil Taylor's dissonant discipline, East Broadway Run Down as performed in words and sound by Lautréamont, Jarry, Artaud, Derrida and Borges or some combo of super-hip transdimensional aliens; and yet the entire epic a cogent, coherent narrative from start to finish. Spears's totally unique work is about as far from dry, academic poetry as one can imagine: it rocks, and if you're willing to venture beyond the gatekeepers' aesthetic confines, it's a blast to read.

—J.P. Harpignies

André Spears is an erudite man. At home with both scholarship and creation. He has published several books of poetry and has a PhD in comparative literature. He is a dual French/American national and over the years he has also immersed himself in jazz, travel, and film. He might even speak ancestral Greek if he had to.

The latest edition of an earlier book—still called XO: A Tale for the New Atlantis—reflects the profane, the profound, and the poignant. (If you don’t believe me, look and listen.) As manifested against the world displayed via the Tale of Xo. In some ways to resurrect Atlantis is as difficult as conceiving and bearing a child.

At one point in the story the poet says: “In a falsely pregnant woman’s womb, a king has found a land to rule—and with it too an empty tomb. Atlantis, my dominion!” The futility of trying to resurrect Atlantis. Or the poet trying to describe himself.

At the start of the book the poet notes, ”I am Xo, the Last Poet, who put an end to war.”
At the end of the book the poet notes, ”I was Xo, the Last Poet, who put an end to war.”

A tautology replays but at least a moving, poignant one. He might even speak ancestral Greek if he had had to.

—Hugh Seidman

André Spears is the director of the Maud / Olson Library in Gloucester (MA) and a senior editor of the recently archived website Dispatches from the Poetry Wars. His previous book, XIII: Ship of State, excerpted from a Tarot-based work-in-progress set on the lost continent of Mu, was published by Dispatches Editions (2019), which concurrently posted a digital edition of Xo: A Tale for the New Atlantis; the e-book is available as a free download from the Dispatches website. In conjunction with Xo, BlazeVOX is also publishing Shrinkrap: Litany in Quadrophony and From the Lost Land (I – XII).

Book Information:

· Paperback: 100 pages
· Binding: Perfect-Bound
· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]
· ISBN: 978-1-60964-373-7