Scott Hammer - Brute Sphinx uses narrative to explore the resulting disintegration when a terrible force (the titular Sphinx) descends. Word by word, the Brute Sphinx removes the potentiality to signify, disrupting the way reality has been historically constructed

Scott Hammer, Brute Sphinx, Solar Luxuriance, 2014.

CLICK FOR PDF

Brute Sphinx uses narrative to explore the resulting disintegration when a terrible force (the titular Sphinx) descends. Word by word, the Brute Sphinx removes the potentiality to signify, disrupting the way reality has been historically constructed. An unnamed protagonist reports on the dissolution, charting the path of destruction using only the language that the sphinx hasn't already taken away. Peppered with blanks of absence as words continue to disappear, the cataclysmic nature becomes more and more apparent--does subjectivity fade with the disappearance of the word "I"? One day our hero sets out to destroy the Brute Sphinx in an attempt to wield his sovereignty. But will this coup succeed?

"In these spacious prose poems, Scott Hammer entangles the mythic with the banal to illustrate how we contend with the now. Part bone and part light, these poems explore what it means to live in a finite body with a want for eternity. They demand love." - Melissa Broder

Scott Hammer is the author of the chapbook Some Body Some Hollow (Horse Less Press). His writing has appeared in Noo WeeklyILK Journal, NAP, La Petite Zine, The Baltimore Review, Smoking Glue Gun, and others.