We Must Betray Our Potential - Scott Thurston

"In these metaphysical dialogues between the dancing and linguistic self, Thurston circles questions of being, ‘self’-presence and identity. The temporality of dance – its fleeting, unrestricted movements – and the apparent ‘solidity’ of the poem as permanence play against each other throughout the book. But the metaphorical nature of language and the material ‘factness’ of the body also weigh heavily – after all, “you can’t edit out your arm.” Thurston’s refusal of a straightforward ‘gesture-as-language’ analogy is admirable. Instead, dance and bodily movement suggest the possibility of gesture as a form of enquiry – an interrogative practice which stands apart from metaphor. In this way the poems clear space for feelings of doubt and vertigo, proposing an ethics of restless, never-settling ‘selves’-examination. How does language, this ‘incorporeal’ stuff, touch us? How are we moved by it? How is thinking made – through movement? Gesture? The trace of a dance?" Amy McCauley