Elementary Poetry

In recent years Andrei Monastyrski has received international recognition for his work with Collective Actions, a group of artists who have organized actions in the fields around Moscow since 1976. Though his poetry is less well known, that is where it all began. After writing poetry in the manner of Russian modernists, newly available to Soviet readers during Khrushchev’s thaw, Monastyrski’s interest in John Cage and ideas about consciousness from Western and Eastern philosophical traditions led him to deepen his dialogue with poetry of the past through experiments with sound, form, and the creation of artistic environments involving carefully conceived objects and situations. Elementary Poetry collects poems, books, and action objects from the '70s, tracing a genealogy of the art action in poetry. With a preface and afterwords by Brian Droitcour and Yelena Kalinsky.