Although originating as text to accompany selections from J.S. Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello, the book version of Mary Maxwell’s Word Suites builds upon the live performances’ premise that poetry and musical composition are sister arts.
The movements of Bach’s cello suites in particular may be seen as a form of “musical thinking.” Most importantly, in an age of AI-produced works, Word Suites affirms the belief that the source for authentic forms of patterned sound and movement will always be an actual person.
In lyrical yet experimental format, the six sections that comprise Word Suites read as a long poem suggesting the learnèd and intellectually challenging qualities of its musical inspiration. The book presents the experience of a poem as analogous to the process of its creation, with the reader as companion in an artistic journey.
As Maxwell writes in her afterword, “Bach teaches that artistic creation functions as a bridge between aesthetic and spiritual pursuits… He tells us in his personal anthem of experienced joy: Go out in the world and be fully human.”
An early response to Word Suites:
“In a time of identity-categorized and audience-marketed poets, what do we do with someone like Mary Maxwell? Well, to begin with, we read her. With Word Suites (as with the poetry of someone like Anne Carson) we may not know exactly where the vehicle is heading but we feel confident the driver knows what she’s doing. And once again, we have among us the work of a “neglected master,” now with five other accomplished collections under her belt. Word Suites is the long poem we’ve been waiting for, not the patched-together “documentary project” currently on offer. Word Suites is ambitiously conceived yet delivers exquisite lyric forcefully composed. With a shared breath of relief, lucky readers will experience the opening phrase of this highly gifted poet’s “Word Suite IV.I: Rehearsal”: We’ve arrived.”
September 1, 2025
ISBN 978-0-9802053-8-1
170 pages
7.25 x 10.25 inches