The Cult of Seizure

Rikki Ducornet

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“The lunatic algebra of Love. The frenzied orbits of Mood. The malarial temperatures of Wound, Symbols of the Cult of Seizure: This flesh, this amulet incised. This hot spoor of predators. This zodiac savaged in the sky.”

The Cult of Seizure is a work of lyrical mesmerism and animal magnetism from acclaimed novelist and artist Rikki Ducornet, which displays a lush poesis and visionary soul. Jane Urquhart describes it as a “combination of the bestial and the bestiary; of terror and of tenderness.”  Although an earlier work it contains all the evocative tapestries of her finest novels.

“Sharp, haunting poetry from a fine practitioner of the art. If you read only one book of poetry this year ...” – Globe & Mail

“...If you’re willing to take the plunge into poetry that cuts close to the bone of our dreams and obsessions, The Cult of Seizure contains some absolutely stunning examples of how language can transform actuality. Using as her model the medieval bestiary, wherein natural and imaginary animals mingled in glorious confusion, Ducornet... has mixed the rivetingly graphic and the ferociously fanciful into a striking volume of verse.” – Toronto Star

“Rikki Ducornet is such a writer, mercifully and productively out of step with her time. She brings to her work a sense of curiosity that many contemporary writers have forgotten. Every object for her, as for Blake, has the potential to be an immense world of delight, opening perpetually up, with this delight being mirrored in the twists and turns of the language that both reveals and evokes it." – Brian Evenson

The daughter of a TV/radio host and a professor of sociology, Rikki Ducornet was raised on the campus of Bard College of New York where she later earned a Fine Arts degree with a minor in mediaeval studies. She sojourned in various locales on her illustrious path to eight novels, three collections of short fiction, and a book of essays and five books of poetry. These places include France, North Africa, the Rocky Mountains, the Bayou, and the Pacific Northwest. She has won numerous awards including a Bunting Institute fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, a National Book Critics’ Award and an Academy Award for Fiction.

In some circles Ducornet is better known for her artwork than her fiction. Her artwork is in such demand that she has illustrated books by Robert Coover, Forest Gander, Kate Bernheimer, Joanna Howard, Anne Waldman, as well as a delightful volume of one of her literary heroes, Jorge Luis Borges.

  • ISBN: 978-1-908011-46-6
  • 92 pages
  • cover painting by Rikki Ducornet
  • perfect-bound paperback: 229mm x 152mm
  • black and white text
  • published 9th April 2012