Must a Violence
Publication Year: 2012
In sounding out the problem of how to respond to violence and to the betrayal and domestication of that which is wild, this book counters with aesthetic violence and disruption of its own, opening the self to the unexpected powers of the senses and to encounters between "wildness" and "domestication" within the self. Though never easy, this openness creates the possibility for an all-enveloping love that touches and joins all animals, both nonhuman and human. 
Published by: University of Iowa Press
Then From Our Green Branch
then the “safety net” they held under a branch then they hit the branch with a stick and all of us who weren’t holding tight right at that second, or if we...
No Blue Morpho
I wanted the Blue Morpho to anoint me with his fragility I was in his presence in the tent of butterflies he did not land...
When All the Leaves
When all the leaves fell the wasp nest hung in its gray paper, bobbing in the empty air When all the autumn leaves fell...
The Cheshire Cat
A visitor had abandoned his heavy luggage in the corner of my bedroom, leather suitcases unbuckled and various garments spilling out. Alone in my diaphanous and ruffled nightgown, I sauntered over to examine...
An Infection
An infection had crept in beneath the dermis and spread subcutaneously clinging to the underside of the skin. The underside of the skin was the ceiling of the infection...
December 24
The sirens are wailing down Washington Street. Down Washington Street the bunched cars part to either curb. In the square’s center, an immense pine tree stands strung with lights by the bank placard...
A Long Blue Distance
The designated “Military Area” had no structure anywhere in sight, just an exit ramp leading off the main road and disappearing entirely into a curve of scorched hillside...
"He Who Roams the Plains”
I am the dream of the Serengeti as its drowsy gold expanse dozes under cloud shadows. As the spotted surface of the sleeping field, I lift away, am sewn together in the breeze— a tall dream filled with length and hay...
If You Love an Animal
I’m making myself cry. I’m looking at myself in the mirror crying, which makes me cry. “Look, I’m crying,” I sob. But no one hears me. No one. Because I’m deserted and neglected and alone...
Chant of the Killing Jar
What’s that iridescence in the Killing Jar? What’s that buzzing in the Killing Jar? Is it you buzzing? Is it me buzzing?...
Tactical Subordinates
Tactical Subordinates Valuable Subordinates Foreign Subordinates Alleged Subordinates Circumstantial Subordinates...
Don’t Fall, Baba
Don’t fall, Baba. It’s hard being a mom, isn’t it. I read somewhere the tragedy of being a mom is that your child will never love you as much as you love your...
I Heard Her Long Hair Making Five Sounds
I heard the sound of a bolt of her hair as she brushed a broad wave of it away from the left side of her face and over her shoulder—I heard it lift into the air and subside again, a brief kite, or a sail for the body...
Five Tiny Doves
It was clear she had carefully considered which jagged rock from the pile of rocks provided for the purpose. Her pitching arm was...
Palais de Mari
It is as much what can be heard through it as it is its own notated tones: concentrated globes like colored droplets sinking through a viscous sky, the droplets dilute themselves with the volume around them, some steadily descend, some hover and ramify (bleed)...
Selection
— for the Real Animals, the coded animals with their finite sequences, live in a physical space surrounded by all the versions they could have been, the invisible, the Almost Animals, almost...
The Worms
The worms were tapping on my forehead. They tapped with the blunt ends of their mouths. They were testing the sturdiness of the ground. They were testing the quality of the sediment...
17-Year Diagnosis
I photograph myself beneath a street sign indicating an evacuation route. I collect dehydrated foods...
Two-Starred Constellation
I’m not sure so how am I supposed to say this so how am I supposed to broach this kind of topic There is one subtracted, two subtracted more, more, one at a time...
Little Pig
That’s right, Little Pig, you’re allowed to do anything you want. That’s right, Little Pig. You’re allowed...
Must a Violence
Must a violence be administered Must a violence be enacted upon Must a violence be had to oneself Must a violence be endured Must an unanticipated violence...
Everybody
Well it started when I wondered if I had something to say and I did not. So much work needs to get done anyway. Some songs need to be photocopied for the routine...
Attention Span
A cupcake will not solve this. A shared ice cream treat with hot fudge will not solve it. Things are accidentally spilled, toppled, my contempt grows. Finish one motion...
The Occupation
You see, it really is a lot of work because there is a lot of mud, you see, especially when it rains so much like it has and makes mud upon mud, mud all the way down, and then it really becomes...
Jury Duty
But of course the limits of our perception are so severe. I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to sit for jury duty and that somehow it’s my duty as a flawed citizen...
This Here Minute
“Don’t make me choose between you,” she said from the recesses of her heavy fabric curtain. I heard her flip an egg timer to measure the minutes of this portion...
Mechanics
Oh life which I hate Oh wading pool of dirt and runoff Oh tree chipper roaring and chewing and spitting out again Oh curly, curly pig tail sprightly on the pig bottom...
Sometimes a Body
It’s hard to see things differently without the person without the voice of the person, but more, the body that holds the voice, the body that moves from one side of the room to the other...
Has His Smell and Taste
Has his smell changed in any way or become offensive to you No I love his smell, he smells the same Are you still in love with how he smells and how he tastes Yes I love his smell and taste...
The Wild Rabbit
They froze hard, stared at one another from the sides of their heads—the wild rabbit, muscular on his haunches, and Sergei, soft, fluffy and plump, bred a jet black not of the natural world. Who can know what thoughts...
Outsource the Burning
Here they come again—yes they’re stopping to inhale—here they are at the bushes, shaking the branch first to scare the bees away before they dip their faces into the flowers...
Otherworldly Thirst
The rats are out drinking at the edges of puddles. Their thirst is unquenchable. They wash their bodies clean...
This World
The sailboats are out on the river. The colors are out; all the leaves are out; the blue sky, cold and clear...
See
Six or seven yards behind you in the city smog a man carrying a dog like a toddler (its front paws around his neck) calls your name, or what could only...
I Was a Whale
I was a whale extending a flipper I rolled over and over to feel the water coursing over my powerful...
Younger and Younger
The clouds are stuck in the tops of trees down there on the mountain. They make it look like a fire burning at the root of the forest, a ground fire, somehow,...
The Sun Turns Like a Pinwheel
A raft stretches behind our mother and we are on it, tethered to her strokes. The sun turns like a pinwheel. We saw it from our network...
Acknowledgments
Sincere thanks to the editors of the following journals, in which poems from this book first appeared (with special thanks to Katie Ford...
E-ISBN-13: 9781609381332
Print-ISBN-13: 9781609381295
Page Count: 94
Publication Year: 2012
OCLC Number: 812570477
MUSE Marc Record: Download for Must a Violence
