{"id":567,"date":"2022-02-04T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/greenblotter\/?p=567"},"modified":"2022-02-04T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T16:00:00","slug":"language-is-always-an-accomplice-review-of-genta-nishkus-basal-rosette-prolit-january-31-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/2022\/02\/04\/language-is-always-an-accomplice-review-of-genta-nishkus-basal-rosette-prolit-january-31-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201clanguage is always an accomplice\u201d: Review of Genta Nishku\u2019s \u201cbasal rosette\u201d (Prolit, January 31, 2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

reviewed by Isaac Fox<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cover art: “The Economy Class” by Abhishek Tuiwala. Prolit<\/em>, January 31, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n

In her prose poem \u201cbasal rosette,\u201d Genta Nishku shatters an American lifestyle into ten scenes. In one, graduate students debate politics in a bar; in another, a project director comments on a drafted grant proposal; another is about picking flowers. At face value, these moments seem mundane, but each thrums with the absorbing, invisible micropolitics that make our lives so vibrantly stressful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nishku has her sights on one demographic\u2014wealthy and upper-middle-class academia\u2014and with each word, she dissects that group\u2019s hypocrisies and mental gymnastics. As the aforementioned grad students debate among themselves, \u201cevery response is measured carefully against an unspoken moral code.\u201d In later sections, popular attitudes toward dandelions reveal suburbia\u2019s unabashed obsession with homogeneity, and an interaction \u201cabroad\u201d is far too problematic to summarize in one word or phrase. An unnamed \u201cscholar,\u201d who \u201chas a hard time concealing his expertise,\u201d goes to another country and harasses a young boy for fifty-cents change. He seems to view this as a game of sorts. Standing by, \u201chis companions discuss marx.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nishku\u2019s prose is sleek, quick-witted, and biting. She also doesn\u2019t use a single capital letter in the poem. As she pokes and prods at widely accepted social hierarchies, she resists the hierarchies of the English language.<\/span><\/p>\n

This focused critique of relatively wealthy, educated Americans and their language is especially bold when you consider who reads American literary magazines. I suspect that a very large portion of their readership\u2014if not a majority\u2014is comprised of educated, relatively wealthy Americans obsessed with language. Nishku\u2019s piece directly challenges its audience\u2019s worldview.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prolit<\/em> (https:\/\/www.prolitmag.com\/about<\/a>) publishes prose, poetry, and visual art focusing on economic struggles, and it\u2019s sixth issue came out on January 31. For more of Genta Nishku\u2019s writing, see https:\/\/www.gentanishku.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaac Fox is a student at Lebanon Valley College, where he majors in English and creative writing. He spends his free time reading and writing things that aren\u2019t assigned, shooting pictures, and playing the clarinet. His fiction and photography have appeared in Rune Bear<\/em> and Heart of Flesh <\/em>magazines, as well as Green Blotter<\/em>\u2019s 2021 issue. You can find him on Twitter at @IsaacFo80415188<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reviewed by Isaac Fox Cover art: “The Economy Class” by Abhishek Tuiwala. Prolit, January 31, 2022. In her prose poem \u201cbasal rosette,\u201d Genta Nishku shatters an American lifestyle into ten […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-isaac-fox","tag-literary-magazine-review","tag-micro-review","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}