When Andy Warhol's a, A Novel was first published in 1968, The New York Times Book Review declared it "pornographic." Yet over four decades later, a continues to be an essential documentation of Warhol's seminal Factory scene. And though the book offers a pop art snapshot of 1960s Manhattan that only Warhol could capture, it remains a challenging read. Comprised entirely of unedited transcripts of recorded conversations taped in and around the Warhol Factory, the original book's tone varies from frenetic to fascinating, unintelligible to poetic.
No Work Finished Here: Rewriting Andy Warhol by Liz Worth attempts to change that, by appropriating the original text and turning each page into a unique poem. In remixing a into poetry using only words and phrases from each piece's specified page, Worth sets the scene for the reader, not unlike eavesdropping in an all-night diner, with poetry full of voices competing to be heard, hoping for just a sliver of attention at the end of a long, desperate night.
True to Worth's style, the poems in this collection hiss and pop with confessional whispers while maintaining the raw, distorted qualities originally captured on tape and documented in a, A Novel. Warhol fans, archivists, and academics, as well as readers of confessional and conceptual poetry and fiction, will jump at the chance to be a part of the Factory in-crowd in No Work Finished Here.

LIZ WORTH is a poet, novelist and nonfiction writer. She is a two-time nominee for the ReLit Award for Poetry for her books The Truth Is Told Better This Way and No Work Finished Here: Rewriting Andy Warhol. Her first book, Treat Me Like Dirt, was the first of its kind to provide an in-depth history of southern Ontario’s first wave punk movement. Her other works also include Amphetamine Heart, PostApoc, and The Mouth is a Coven. Her writing has appeared in Chatelaine, FLARE, Prism, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and Broken Pencil, among others. Liz is a professional tarot reader and lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

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“The end of the world is not a new idea. Liz Worth writes as if it were. You come away gasping. Begging for hope. Begging for happiness. Begging for the sanctuary of the unreal. PostApoc makes Cormac’s The Road seem paved with yellow brick. You’ll need more air after reading this.” —Bob Bryden, singer-songwriter, founding member of Christmas, Reign Ghost, Benzene Jag, and Age of Mirrors

“Warhol would be the first to say, in his wrinkly voice, how excited he was that Liz Worth had done this to his novel. He might have even said something clever like, “It should have just been poetry all along.” —subTerrain Magazine