Secret Histories

Poetry. SECRET HISTORIES is interested in the way history is constructed as an active engagement with a non-negotiable future, as opposed to the passive receipt of past "truths." "Steppe Work" presents itself as recovered fragments from the height of the Mongol Empire, the largest land-based empire in history. "Last Man Standing" is offered in the classical form of a shepherd's calendar, counting down the last 12 months of the last man alive on earth. Between and through these sequences, the poem "Pre/Science" attempts to inhabit a present moment that is continually slipping into the layered time-keeping of human consciousness. In fragments and disjointed observations, the book tries to replicate and in fact become the process of "making" history itself. Watson is the author of several collections of poetry including AFTER CALCULUS, DISCIPLINE and FREE WILL.