20,
Erasure Poems of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea
by Jennifer Roche
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First serialized in a French periodical between March 1869 and June 1870, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea forever changed not only the arena of fiction as we knew it, but our relationship to the sea. Considered by most to be one of the earliest works of science fiction, Verne’s imaginative, wondrous novel has lent itself to hundreds of translations and interpretations the world over, introducing new generations to a fathomless world of infinite mystery and unearthly beauty from the depths. In the 21st century, however, it’s hard to imagine the bottomless ocean without the comprehension of all the harm and shifts that humans have wrought to this natural marvel from which all life sprang.
In text artist and poet Jennifer Roche’s erasure of Verne’s classic, this contemporary sensibility and awareness meets the adventurous realm of an ancient underwater sci-fi. With a mix of mourning, precaution, awe, and fascination, Roche has given urgent context to old words, and ignited them with new breath. Pulling in our post-industrial world on the cusp of the Anthropocene, with its gun violence, refugees, war, overstuffed prisons, climate change, and destruction of natives—both human and nonhuman alike—Roche has begged of us a furious calling to protect and cherish the seas that swirl around us. She has transformed a classic into fresh work that stands on its own merit, reaching into the past to speak to our troubling modern times, and reminding us: the sea is everything.
Illustrated throughout with ink-and-watercolor quadtychs by Hosho McCreesh.
Content Warning: climate trauma
Praise
“Like an oracle, Roche commands the words of Verne to float to the surface to cast prophetic warnings about the darkness we face today. But In her deft care, these poems molt the crusted shell of the past and emerge in our times shiny and wondrous.”
—Armin Tolentino,
Author of We Meant to Bring It Home Alive
“Roche’s deft slicing and silencing of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea transforms Verne’s work into a ship’s signal lamp, transmitting flashes of insight and warning: the barbs of human nature threaten our shared voyage, while a tender awareness of interconnectedness may buoy us yet.”
—Allison Boyd Justus,
Author of Solstice to Solstice to Solstice
“Forces the imagination to be at work, to fill in the empty spaces, to zoom out of the surrounding frames. A wondrous work that uses 20,000 Leagues as source material and runs with it, does it justice, making its own unique voyage for the ages.”
—Neon Pajamas
Also by Jennifer Roche
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• Erasure Poems | Ink/Watercolor Artwork
• 5” x 8” Perfectbound Trade Paperback
• Cream Paper, 64 Pages
• Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-946580-14-6
• Paperback ISBN-10: 1946580147
• Hardcover ISBN-13: Coming Soon
• Hardcover ISBN-10: Coming Soon
• Ebook ISBN-13: Coming Soon
• Ebook ISBN-10: Coming Soon
• LCCN: Not Registered
• First Edition: March 3, 2020
• Short URL: acpbook.link/20
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Cover design by Leah Angstman with artwork by Ejausburg.
About the Author
JENNIFER ROCHE is a poet, writer, and text artist who lives in Chicago, Illinois. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Tule Review; Storm Cellar; Footnote: A Literary Journal of History (#2); Oyez Review; Rain, Party & Disaster Society; and Ghost Ocean. She was named a “Writer to Watch in 2019 & Beyond” by the Chicago Literary Guild and a 2016 Charter Oak Award Semifinalist for Best Historical writing.
About the Illustrator
HOSHO McCREESH is currently writing and painting in the gypsum and caliche badlands of the American Southwest. His work has appeared widely in print, in audio, and online.
Media & Images
• Reviewed on Neon Pajamas
• Listed in Entropy’s “Quarantine Reading: Books You Shouldn’t Forget to Buy”
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