The Book of Immaculate Perception / Madrigals is a tête-bêche (flip book) by Marc Zegans and Larry Beckett in which both Madrigals by Beckett and The Book of Immaculate Perception by Zegans read from their respective fronts-to-backs in a single spine format. The confluence between these paired chaps extends beyond shared narrative lines to independently formed yet common imagery and complementary methods of composition. In each body of work, you will find compactness of speech, form that liberates line, and an easy flow from poem-to-poem that animates and enriches the experience of reading these two sets of poems in each other’s company.
Marc Zegans’s seven collections of poems include Lyon Street (Bamboo Dart Press, 2022) and The Snow Dead (Červená Barva Press, 2020). Ghost Book (Kite String Press, 2024), a fine art photo book collaboration with photographer Tsar Fedorsky, is held in the special collections of the Boston Athenaeum, the Getty Research Institute, Yale University’s Haas Family Arts Library, Haverford College, the Peabody Essex Museum, and others. Marc reviews poetry for Liberated Words in his column, “On the Cutting Edge.” Films based on Marc’s poems appear regularly at festivals around the world.
There is, in fact, magic in this world and this book sings to it. These two highly regarded writers call the reader in to turn over the sands of time, both temporally and figuratively. The call and response of Zegans and Beckett is dependent on the physical act of the reader turning the book over and starting again. In my mind there is a reader that starts and never ends. The connective tissue, ideas that act in concert and opposed to one another by the writers etch-a-sketch and transform themselves with each reading, are those the work of the writers or of the reader? Here then is a book you will want to spend some time with.
Do check out the short for Larry Beckett’s half of the book Madrigals which premieres tomorrow. The book is out worldwide on August 18th and available for preorder now. Here is the short featuring the art of Lark Simmons for Marc Zegans The Book of Immaculate Perception.