Poetry. Ephemera & Non-standard Formats. Hybrid Genre. Art. LBGTQIA Studies. Artwork by Brandon Shimoda. In DEPT. OF POSTHUMOUS LETTERS, Dot Devota and Caitie Moore conduct an epistolary exchange that subverts the logic of the dialogic. "In a letter you cannot listen. You must always be speaking," writes Devota, as her letters to Moore narrate anecdotes that read like overheard myths--webs of observation, reversal and misunderstanding that signal the presence of an attentive listener. Line drawings by Brandon Shimoda intensify the enchantment that unfolds out of Moore and Devota's voices. "Have you ever played this game: Horse/Muffin/Bird?" Moore asks Devota. Intelligently-framed questions ranging from philosophical to purely affectionate interlace these poems like veins of honey. "It's a proportion thing, an order thing. I am, certainly, no part Muffin."

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Basically, [Barth] takes several people from his early novels and has them all starting to write to each other, and to him, their letters and experiences directing the plot. And what starts out as what could be a too-cute literary trick winds up being extremely revealing, as the characters pour themselves into the letters, regardless of whom they're writing to, as the plot skips and slips through time. On one level it acts as a sequel to those early novels, continuing their stories and although it's not really required to read those books, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't help. The best thing to do would be to read those old novels in one block and then move onto this . . . I read them some years ago so I was a little fuzzy on the finer points. But I picked it up. But Barth captures the voices of his old characters well and even if you didn't know who was writing what letter, you could tell. And thus they tell the recepient, and us, about their hopes and fears, they mingle together, they lie, they come unglued, and by the end you sort of get a tapestry of their thoughts. There's a plot weaving through here but sometimes it becomes hard to connect it with six different people discussing different angles of it with you, but I just went with it and enjoyed the writing for what it was. --Michael Battaglia at Amazon.com.