Sesshu Foster - Atomik Aztex (2005), 9/10

Sesshu Foster's work as a poet is immediately recognizable in his first full-length novel Atomik Aztex. There are practically endless sources of study within the text, starting with form and aesthetics of Foster's poetic style continuing into the metaphysical and multidimensional quantum mechanics based metanarrative. This construction of a hybrid transnational verse novel regularly experiments with form, affect, structure, and visual presentation in ways untouched before Foster dared to pivot, and while these dimensions have been experimented with before, it is clear that they have not been colored with this palette prior to Atomik Aztex and its publication in 2005. The colliding timelines of Zenzon(tli)'s lives and the mixture of historicism and intertextuality present limitless possibilities of interpretation, a feature of the text that is essential to enjoying the novel to its fullest, or perhaps at all. The lack of narrative structure and touch points make it a rather disorienting reading experience, something that becomes a strength considering its context and its place among the broader transnational literary sphere. Foster's criticism of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and the awards he conveniently is excluded from only contribute to his poetic place among the poets and authors of the 2000s, especially considering the developments that are continuing to take place in transnational literature. The cosmography of the novel is something that has been commented on in criticism and will likely continue to develop, a forward-thinking and forward-leaning development that Foster brings to the creative zeitgeist rather early, and though he was not the first, he combines necessary aspects of the transnational American experience to this narrative while unraveling some of the essential elements of cosmography that would emerge later such as the sovereign in capitalist American socioeconomic structures, collectivist power in the context of unionization of minorities, the role of technology in the progression and regression of the working classes (perhaps the proletariat), art's role in escapism or interpretation of art itself, and perhaps one of the most important leaps forward in creative fiction: a metaphysical discussion of aesthetics within the poetic novel. The structure and style of the novel are intertextual and self-referential, ranging from jazz's improvisation to the "melodic & rhythmik tensions" of fiction writing, even further the role of dissonance in providing a meaningful artistic representation of life. Without going further into the boundless depths of interpreting a stylistic behemoth of a novel that is Atomik Aztex, it is suffice to say the artistry behind its creation results in one of the most worthwhile reading experiences of this era.