Plans for Sentences by Renee Gladman (Wave Books)

These sentences are isolated outgrowths on the page, declamatory black islands on the sea of white page.

These sentences are accompanied by, perhaps arise out of or derive from, drawings. These sentences are unsure if they are words or images, are what arises from asemic writing, from figures, plans and imaginary architecture. These sentences ‘inscribe their own topography; make their shape with their shape’ (fig. 23).

These sentences ‘both fog and chart the rising structure’ (fig. 45) as they gesture, dome, tower and broadcast. These sentences are active participants in the construction of a shelter for the reader, built in their own individual way.

These sentences ‘balance the question of movement against that of enclosure’ (fig. 7). These sentences take risks, do some pretty heavy semantic lifting, and sometimes collapse under the weight of their own intentions and possible interpretations. 

These sentences are carefully built temporary shelters, and can be rearranged into other dwellings. These sentences imagine possible future sentences, as purely text, at the end of the book.

These sentences are dream structures, buildings made of language arising from sentences which are drawings. These sentences ‘will up and flutter and through’ (fig. 60), ‘will not know space’ (fig. 5).

These sentences explore sentence construction and the nature of language, ‘and will not always say what they mean’ (p. 127). They often self-destruct but ‘will open when they fail’ (fig. 47).

These sentences are both tentative and self-assured. These sentences cluster and work together, but also stand up for themselves and elbow each other aside. 

These sentences are hollows of meaning, are moments of illumination.

These sentences are some of many.

These sentences have no closure


Rupert Loydell, 24th June 2022