Higgin's 'I am writing a monologue' and the pick-n-mix of language

mini-review of 'I am writing a monologue' by Jessica Higgins

I am interested not only in the way a writer sculpts language, what poetic images they’re able to conjure in the negative spaces but also, and perhaps most importantly, in the way they contort language into something fresh. I have no room for the stale scent of stagnation. I like rule breakers. I like those who have a bit of fun. Those that look at the vast abyss directly in the eye, with a wink. Like bending bamboo into a bonsái, I am most exhilarated by work that extends beyond meaning, that establishes multiple meanings as a form of distortion — effectively adopting a literary fuzz pedal for maximum emotional reverb — or text that ventures out beyond the realm of expectation. Does the sentence take place now or later? Has it already happened? Higgins takes our hand in ‘I am Writing a Monologue’ and places us in a metaphorical kitchen — derails past the point of telemetry, past the point of monologue and it’s predecessor, dialogue — into a buffet that is neither here nor there, now or in the future. Language here, is efficiently pliable and tantalizingly succulent.