Borrowing from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, and absurdist theater in equal measure, Theatrix: Poetry Plays is a tour de force collection that explodes our notion of the fourth wall to include deconstructionist, experimental poetics and the vernacular (from trigger warnings to congressional hearings) of our times. Whether imagining a "skein of scenes" between amorous cutlery, or "States of Information War," Svoboda defies all authoritarian structures (paternal, religious, directorial) through a daring performative text that excavates the very "root of spectacle" — spectators, and readers, themselves. In a staged world where "even the building is burning," and the various forms of perspectival chaos include the POV of blood, how can any dramatic representation cohere? Svoboda offers not an answer but a challenge: to think "the unthinkable." Not since Beckett has an existential soliloquy defined the task before us with such bravura: the way forward is brilliantly, bracingly clear. —Virginia Konchan, author of Any God Will Do

What writing could be more attuned to our Kavanaugh-sodden, post-post-industrial moment than these mordant and eerie vignettes from Terese Svoboda? Continuing her distinguished record of accomplishment in prose and verse, Theatrix offers poetry in play and at play, darting in and out of domestic scenes (including a spoon & fork’s poignant interplay), ruined shopping malls, and Shakespearian denouements. Throughout, her commitment to truth-telling burns brightly, whether in feminist retracings of patriarchal wreckage or in resolute acknowledgment of the knottiness of language, its dense opacities and scintillas of insight. Svoboda writes in “Five Acts” of “the aisle dark but for the glinting”; these thrilling poems are often ominous, but lit from within by a fierce and compassionate intelligence. — John Beer, author of The Waste Land and Other Poems

Sinewy is the word that comes to mind when considering Svoboda’s aesthetics. Sinewy is neither loose nor stiff, but taut, flexible, adaptable. Theatrix is sinewy and so much more. Svoboda’s poetics are refreshingly not burdened by mono-topicality, unitary “voice”, or throwaway experimentalism. There’s maximum ingenuity to every single poem. The multivalent vocabilities deployed are arrestingly artful and scintillatingly athletic. Thematics be gone! Theatrix is for swift thinkers who crave raw word acts over mannered narratives. — Rodrigo Toscano, author of In Range

“Terese Svoboda is one of those writers you would be tempted to read regardless of the setting or the period or the plot or even the genre.” — Bloomsbury Review

Shame Helps

[A sudden not-breeze fills the air.]

Two men dressed in corduroy approach, one pulling a boat.

A boat of agony.

Heigh-ho. [Greeting]. [Greeting].

Fleeting smile, both. The word smile left on faces [of the Fourth Wall].

How to read that?

[The optic nerve gets it up].

What has been done weighs the Heigh.

The smarter of the men has a dollar hanging from a pocket.

Acquisitive or careless?

Balance implies a man out of sight removing his shoes.

[Why a man is the question].

The philosopher in the second row wants to punch the usher.

Such restraint stupefies the audience into paradoxical sleep:

they stop worrying but their eyeballs still roll.

And if the heavens help [with a hole in the roof] above the lights: drip, drip,

the two men look to the exit, shamed, unwilling to follow one or the other without a speech.

Let us bury Caesar.

I hope we find some sand.

Creepy, the way birds [in stillness] sing.

The Scottish Play

a soliloquy piped in over the vacant stage

[b.g. sound: ice cubes] [coffee pouring]

someone says words and then you see “tomorrow” and “tomorrow” and “tomorrow”

rephrase on the LCD at lights out: “the instruments of darkness tell truths”

arch language [better algorithms]

moveable elements: not chairs but guilt: Duncan’s guilty Malcolm’s guilty the omniscient writer’s guilty two drunk chamberlains

walk forward and fear that the forest is walking forward

[involuntary shriek]

speak as if to camera although it’s a play

switch locations: Banquo in the bathroom Macduff behind his computer in Maryland

all scenes contained in this poem What Luck!

two chairs face the audience the first chair coughs an explosion of daggers

here is the garden she points to the sink here is the castle and points to the air vent

characters walk in from another scene IT SAVES MONEY

names but no dialogue [they all stand there silent then sleepwalk]