(nevertheless Enjoyment

With vivid language that denies easily attained unambiguous and unlayered emotion, the poems in (nevertheless enjoyment examine and reexamine what satisfaction means through the lens of intimate experience. From "[s]lumps in the middle where history is" to "[t]he drab-colored female being more of a challenge," Elizabeth Bryant portrays details of life's challenges in surprising and, at times, unsettling terms. Central to this work of serial prose poetry is the concept of jouissance, sometimes loosely translated as "enjoyment." Bryant uses the word to convey not only pleasure, happiness, achievement and satisfaction, but also fixation, difficulty, obstruction and conflict. These nuanced poems convey the sense that a precise understanding of jouissance is elusive and may be fully perceived only in hindsight. Showing the influence of writers such as Lyn Hejinian, Leslie Scalapino and Carla Harryman, Bryant's direct prose illustrates a series of bittersweet and timeless vignettes. (nevertheless enjoyment provides evidence of an ever-present life force that is at once ineffable and brutally powerful.