Words of Love

Poetry. Art. Taking its title from a 1966 pop song by The Mamas and the Papas, WORDS OF LOVE is an index of the words and their frequency in the complete sonnets of William Shakespeare. The text includes: 160 loves, 16 hates, 8 summers, 5 winters, 7 virtues, 1 vice, 1 virgin. 12 die, 2 died, 1 dies, 1 dying, and 1 diest. 489 ands, 163 buts, 80 ors. 344 marks of I, 164 of my and 62 mines. 113 yous. 3 thrices, 2 saucys, and 1 canker-blooms. WORDS OF LOVE is both art object and literary...
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Poetry. Art. Taking its title from a 1966 pop song by The Mamas and the Papas, WORDS OF LOVE is an index of the words and their frequency in the complete sonnets of William Shakespeare. The text includes: 160 loves, 16 hates, 8 summers, 5 winters, 7 virtues, 1 vice, 1 virgin. 12 die, 2 died, 1 dies, 1 dying, and 1 diest. 489 ands, 163 buts, 80 ors. 344 marks of I, 164 of my and 62 mines. 113 yous. 3 thrices, 2 saucys, and 1 canker-blooms. WORDS OF LOVE is both art object and literary experiment, investigating poetry through the lens of accumulation. Replacing the structural repetition of the sonnet form with pure repetition of words, Rutkoski disassembles the construct of love as erected by its most iconic architect. This text is for anyone who knows the truth of the lyrics, "worn out phrases and longing gazes / won't get you where you want to go."

WORDS OF LOVE is published as part TrenchArt: Surplus Series, with an introduction by Annette Gilbert (translated by Vivien Knussi) and visual art by Klaus Killisch.

"Mark Rutkoski's WORDS OF LOVE numbers and alphabetizes all the words in Shakespeare's 154 sonnets. The conceptual project may first seem written at the expense of lyric-making. That is far from the case. It's thrilling to see facing pages filled with only the word 'to,' astonishing to learn that the word 'trees' appears only once and the word 'tree' not at all. Sweetness of word relations is unavoidable, because the alphabet seeks such joy: 'slow / slumbers / sluttish / small / small / smell / smell / smell / smell / smell / smells / smiling / smoke / smother / snow / so.' On pages 48-49, it's thrilling to encounter six columns of 'I' falling like the word-rain in Apollinaire's visual poem 'Il pluet.' Don't mock modern moiety; much mud, murderous muse. Make room, Gertrude Stein."—Paul Hoover