Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
Young American poet Adam Gordon, who is on a renowned fellowship in Madrid, is talented but incredibly unstable and is still trying to figure out who he is and how he feels about art. What is real when language, technology, medicine, and the arts mediate our experiences? Is poetry a fundamental art form or is it only a canvas on which the reader projects ideas? Adam deviates from the guidelines of his fellowship and instead uses his “research” as an opportunity to reflect on the potential of the real in the arts and beyond: are his interactions with the locals in Spain as fake as he thinks his poems are? Is he a participant in historical events or only a bystander as he observes the 2004 Madrid train bombings and their aftermath?
Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
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In the text that alternates between humour and tragedy, self-loathing and inspiration, Leaving the Atocha Station paints a picture of the artist as a young man growing up in the era of Google searches, prescription drugs, and spectacle.
Ben Lerner is a poet who has published three books of poetry: The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path. He was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1979. In addition to being a Fulbright Scholar in Spain and a 2010–2011 Howard Foundation Fellow, he has also been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award. He made history by becoming the first American to be awarded the Preis der Stadt Münster für Internationale Poesie in 2011. His debut book is Leaving the Atocha Station.
Young poet Adam Gordon is a postgraduate fellow who resides in Madrid. He talks about getting out of bed slowly, taking his medication, smoking a joint, and then travelling to the Prado Museum to face the “Descent from the Cross” by Rogier van der Weyden. But on this particular occasion, a strange man occupies his usual spot and unexpectedly breaks down in uncontrollable sobs. Is he troubled personally, or is he enjoying a profound artistic experience?
