Artist and writer Felix Bernstein's first book of poems mordantly stages his attempt to pick between family, lovers, coteries, and solitude. Drawing on the story...
Artist and writer Felix Bernstein's first book of poems mordantly stages his attempt to pick between family, lovers, coteries, and solitude. Drawing on the story of child muse Eva Ionesco, Bernstein troubles the melodramatic coming-of-age story with his neurotic self-critical ruminations. Does the pouty, post-digital, coquettish boy have recourse to transgression? To answer, Bernstein rummages through the closets of his queer and familial lineages and finds many skeletons in waiting. Awkward, fragile, imposing, parodic, and earnest, these poems push brooding indifference into elegy and seduction. Burn Book, full of correspondence and confession, is an irreverent and irresistible treat for those readers who dare to be burned.
FELIX BERNSTEIN debuted on YouTube with his satirical (yet real) high-school coming-out video in 2008; going on to play Amy Winehouse, Lamb Chop, and Leopold (Peter) Brant. Bernstein's critical and uncritical writings have appeared in BOMB, the Believer, Hyperallergic, and the Boston Review. His book of essays, Notes on Post-Conceptual Poetry, was published in 2014. His solo performance Adonis or Bieber Bathos Elegy will premiere at the Whitney in the fall and he is currently the R & D Fellow at the New Museum.
