Eleven:Eleven by Liz Worth
published in 2008
Trainwreck Press, 8.5x5.5, 24pp, $5.00 (CAN)

Written during a stretch of unemployment in the spring of 2008, this micro-novel pieces together a narrative that speaks through a fragmented consciousness of abstract poetics, claustrophobic fantasies, and scraps of torrid memories salvaged from Worth’s personal journals.

The last time I encountered so successful a hybrid between autobiography, poetry, and fiction was the 1992 publication of Daniel Jones' Obsessions: a novel in parts from Beverley Daurio's, The Mercury Press. While Worth has yet to attain the high literary genius Jones exhibits in Obsessions - she is not without her own overflowing cup of literary talent as she pieces together a complex narrative labyrinth of female coming of age rituals, overt media images, and juxtaposed images of sexuality, identity, gender, love, and madness of an anonymous narrator.

15.

Life outside this bed is unimaginable. Grotesque. A dreaded, hunched figure you don't want to look at.

It seems there is no way to leave. It seems you will never want to.

Eleven:Eleven is one of those "must have" chapbooks of a young, emerging writer, particularly as an artifact of her early writing, revealing initial sprouts of brilliance (I'll let you decide which - there are just too many to choose from in this chapbook). Eleven:Eleven is an exceptional literary tease which begs one to wonder - what is forthcoming from Liz Worth in five years? Ten years? Twenty?

What sprouts in Eleven:Eleven can only blossom in later works.

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Available from:

www.ditchpoetry.com

Liz Worth is an experimental writer and freelance journalist living in Toronto. Her poetry has been featured on ditch, and the anthology Strong Words: Year 2. She is the author of the forthcoming tome on Toronto punk history, Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond (Bongo Beat), and her writing has appeared in The Toronto Star, Toronto Life, Exclaim!, Punk Planet, and Broken Pencil, among other publications: www.lizworth.com