Toolbox Book

Tools are normally physical and grammatical objects but this does not stop them having the secondary function of imbuing us with meaning. The inherent poetic dynamics of utilitarian objects form the basis of Fabio Morabito's 12 short yet spacious paeans, sympathetically illustrated by Bernardo Recamier. In Morabito's hands, the common file "works by persuasion", oil is really "water weak at the knees ... (or) equipped with hips", pipes signify "fillets of level being", screws want to be nails, scissors are as "useless as eunuchs" and string is defined as "a dot elongated to the point of obsession". And then there is the hammer:It acts like a bilious poem; it's bilious, goatish and eagle-like. The force of a juicy anger has been attached to a wooden handle and left to ferment and toughen there. That's the way we get hammers--from a slow drip-drip of rage, which finally forms a scab at the end of the handle, an amalgam of wrath.With prose as aerated as a sponge (one of his subjects), Mexican poet Morabito pushes his thoughts through a series of linguistic filters, having been born in Egypt of Italian parents and presently writing in Spanish,(his second language), here translated by Geoff Hargreaves. Affectionately surreal, with the occasional totter towards the absurd and more than a nod to Roland Barthes, Morabito's metaphysical prose poems transcend the physical to stimulate thought as much as expressing it and, depending on your perspective, they either hit the nail on the head or use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Playfully bombastic, Toolbox is a perfect buy for the virtual DIY-er, who prefers reading rather than fumbling through a toolbox. --David VincentRead More