24 Hour Air

24 Hour Air is a cycle of twenty-four prose poems that takes place on the scale of a mythic day. Documenting each hour in this day, the cycle depicts different zones of the writer's life. A painting studio, the sands of Fire Island, a childhood bedroom, a game of Tetris; the death of a father, the loss of lovers, life synchronized with and without friends. Rosenthalis' systematic approach, where each poem takes its title and imagery from another poem in the cycle, releases a psychosomatic painterliness that apprehends what one poem calls, in a tongue-in-cheek gesture towards Shakespearean philosophizing, "quintessence." The attention to detail in these internal still lifes becomes ultimately life-affirming: "As long as a length happens, like a sheer black stocking, anyone can try on in-ness, I think." This is a world of spit, semen, and tears. These poems veer at times absurd and enigmatic, mysterious and quizzical, through an awe-inspiring faith in the power of the imagination. Departing from the famed contemporary American painter Jennifer Bartlett's series of twenty-four paintings, on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24 Hour Air moves beyond conventional ekphrasis to become its own sensual and idiosyncratic autobiographical work of art.