Why read Dime-Store Alchemy?

Book cover of Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell

Book description

Now in Paperback

In Dime-Store Alchemy, poet Charles Simic reflects on the life and work of Joseph Cornell, the maverick surrealist who is one of America’s great artists. Simic’s spare prose is as enchanting and luminous as the mysterious boxes of found objects for which Cornell is justly renowned.

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Poetry

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Why read it?

1 author picked Dime-Store Alchemy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jeffrey Hantover

Author

One of my favorite poets writing about one of my favorite artists. Cornell’s mysterious, alluring dreamscapes in his delicately crafted boxes meet their soulmate in the prose poems of Simic. In this work of only seventy-seven pages of short meditations on Cornell’s life, inspiration, and method, Simic creates the poetic equivalent of Cornell’s visual art. Simic recognizes, as did Cornell, that “The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen, if recognized.”

From Jeffrey's list on The best books to read when the museum is closed.