extual Poems, Visual Poems and Conceptual Writings.
Visually and conceptually dynamic, Buffet World is Donato Mancini’s smorgasbord of verbal and visual poems about food, trade, and life under late–late–capitalism.
The various ingredients of Buffet World capture Mancini’s dissatisfaction with current social conditions. Buffet World underlines our inescapable complicity as (constantly) both victims and victimisers in a system that should leave us choked with rage, but more often dazzles us with surreal spectacle.
The images in Buffet World are colourful and almost garish, and the words are brilliantly manipulated. Equally concerned with the violence done to our planet, our bodies and imaginations, these startling, funny poems perform a deep cultural critique.
Statistics & Food & Capitalism & Death & Lists.
Full Colour. 128 Pages. Composed 2003-2010. In Print & Available
Published by New Star Books (Vancouver)
ABOUT MANCINI’S PREVIOUS BOOKS
‘It is difficult, even impossible, to discuss the twelve poems in Ligatures in any comprehensive way in such a short space. There is much to be considered on many different levels here, and this suggests to me that Mancini’s might be the stuff of literary longevity … a powerful debut.’ — Carolyn van der Meer, subTerrain.
‘[Ligatures] is conceptual poetry at its best: entertaining, illuminating, intelligent.’ — Lemon Hound
‘Will go down in mesostomatic history as the first poems to put hair on your brain.’ — Kevin Killian
‘Æthel is a stunningly complex pool of words, a primordial soup of language.’ — Aaron Tucker, Southernmost Review
The interdisciplinary practice of Donato Mancini focuses mainly on poetry, bookworks, text-based visual art and cultural criticism. His two New Star books of procedural and visual writing, Ligatures (2005) and Æthel (2007) were each nominated for the ReLit Award, and Ligatures received honourable mention in the Alcuin Book design awards. Mancini’s collaborative visual works have been exhibited in Canada, the United States, Scandinavia and Cuba. Notable exhibitions include Surveillance Sketch(Artspeak, Vancouver 2003), Untitled: Conversation Loops (The Western Front, Vancouver 2004; with Miguel da Conceicao, Jacob Gleeson, and Elisa Rathje) and Angels in the Angles (Gallery Atsui, Vancouver 2009; with Marina Roy and Christian Bök), and an upcoming exhibition of print objects at CSA (Vancouver). He also co-directed the world’s first genuine in-world avatar documentary AVATARA (Centre A, Vancouver 2003), now part of the Ubu Web international archive of experimental film and video. Long time member of the Kootenay School of Writing, he was a principal curator of the interdisciplinary N 49 15.832 – W 123 05.921 Positions Colloquium at VIVO in August 2008. Other recent publications include a book edition from Fillip Editions (Vancouver) entitled Fact `N’ Value, as well as poetic and critical writings in publications such as The Capilano Review, Open Letter, West Coast Line, Rampike, W, The West Wind Review, Parser, ditch, Poetry is Dead and Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing.