Connections & Choreography, by Jacob Schepers

Poetry, chapbook, 44 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

In Connections & Choreography, Jacob Schepers assembles a textual experiment consisting of poetic fragments—lines and phrases—undergoing transformation across four rearrangements. "This is an example of movable type," one section announces, and while the chapbook’s formal innovative constraint may often seem to fit the bill as the prima donna of this imagined production, what ends up taking center stage is the lasting mystery of how poetic meaning forces its way out of an imposed straightjacket and ends up accumulating lyrical significance and inviting further introspection and interrogation.

Connections & Choreography is a scene, a spectacle, of imposed constraint and recombination. A tongue-in-cheek yet instructive "Preface as Press Release" introduces the work further within the document itself and establishes each poetic phrase as a fame-starved member of a cast of characters who all seek wider exposure and grander spotlights.

Jacob Schepers is the author of A Bundle of Careful Compromises (Outriders Poetry Project, 2014). His poems have appeared in DIALOGIST, The Greensboro Review, Harpur Palate, Heavy Feather Review, Indianapolis Review, Midway Journal, and elsewhere. He received his MFA and PhD from the University of Notre Dame, where he now teaches in the University Writing Program. With Sara Judy, he edits the online poetry journal ballast. Originally from northern Michigan, he now lives in South Bend, Indiana, with his wife and four sons. More at www.jacobschepers.com and @JacobSchepers.