A poetic documentation of imperial structures through the story of a shipwrecked Spanish trade vessel. In this work of hybrid historiography, Sam Creely modulates the English sentence to map the ways anglophone imperial self-fashioning moves in and out of social coherence, investigating how syntactic requirements reflect colonial history and how the rules of language structure thought. Through scenes including intimate encounters with dye, fabric, and garments, Creely reveals the sexual and racial grammars of empire.
Inventorystakes as its point of departure the voyage, shipwreck, and eventual excavation of the Spanish trade vessel El Nuevo Constante. Animated by the image of sixty thousand pounds of dye bleeding into the Gulf of Mexico, this six-part poetic documentation follows the wreckage of the Constante linguistically, moving among early modern lexicography, and ultimately toward enmeshed histories of catalog, fabrication, and revision.
Inventorysis the winner of the 2022 Omnidawn Poetry Open Book Contest, selected by Shane McCrae.
Sam Creelyis assistant professor at ArtCenter College of Design. With Pia Sazani, they are a founding editor of the DanceNotes Chaplet Series and coauthor of
Throat Draw Come Out With It.
Inventorysis their debut poetry collection.
“[Creely] discover[s] and implement[s], as the book unfolds, a voice that is both intellectually challenging and emotionally engaging . . .Inventorysrewards thinking and re-thinking, reading and re-reading, as all poetry must if it is to meet that ineffable hunger for poetry all readers of poems know, which cannot finally be sated, though it can be pleased.Inventoryspleases that hunger.”
“Inventorysoffers a tour-de-force refusal of linguistic imperialism in six acts. Scattering syntax to the four winds, this awing debut collection excavates the wreckagel³X
![Inventorys [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/3/8/8/2_6972990.jpg "Inventorys [Paperback]")