Distributed for Tupelo Press
Body Thesaurus
In her second book, Jennifer Militello uses symptoms, diagnostic tests, and antidotes to illuminate tensions of identity that are central to illness and health. An endangered psyche confronts maladies and faces gods in poems that embody the complexities of self. Selected by Marilyn Hacker as a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, Body Thesaurus examines the failing conduit of human physicality, offering beauty as a counter-stream to struggle.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
The Skins We Slit Seeking the Vertebrae of Snakes / 3
The self is not a shadow of the self.
Personality State: Prophet / 7
Personality State: Scavenger’s Daughter / 8
Personality State: Persephone / 9
Personality State: Animal / 11
Personality State: Convict / 12
Personality State: Statue / 13
Personality State: Husk / 14
The self is not a symptom.
Felon’s Logic /17
Stockholm Syndrome with Death as the Captor / 19
Phobia / 21
Hemorrhage / 22
Somnambulism / 23
Empathy / 24
Afterburn / 26
The self is not a battery of tests.
Interview under Hypnosis / 29
Rorschach Test / 31
Polygraph Test / 32
X-Ray of a Rib Cage / 34
The Smoldering Hand / 35
Sound of Eye, Wind, and Limb / 37
Eye / 38
The self is not what is said about the self.
Autobiography toward a Study of the Thousand Wounds / 41
Autobiography with God Complex and Epidemic / 43
Autobiography in Not-Song and October / 45
What the Cultivation Means / 47
The Unspeakable, Said / 48
Conjugating the Void / 49
The self is not a study of the world.
There Remain New Branches / 53
World Hypothesis / 54
The Zoology of Imaginary Joy / 55
The Botany of Man-Made Things / 56
Memory: / 57
Theory of Relativity / 58
Body Thesaurus / 59
The self is not a cure.
Antidote with Attempts at Diagnosis / 63
Antidote with Placebo / 65
Antidote with Beatitudes / 67
Antidote with Early Weather / 68
Antidote with Symptoms / 69
Tourniquet / 70
Preventing a Relapse / 71
Wholeness Is an Imagined State / 75
Acknowledgments / 78
The Skins We Slit Seeking the Vertebrae of Snakes / 3
The self is not a shadow of the self.
Personality State: Prophet / 7
Personality State: Scavenger’s Daughter / 8
Personality State: Persephone / 9
Personality State: Animal / 11
Personality State: Convict / 12
Personality State: Statue / 13
Personality State: Husk / 14
The self is not a symptom.
Felon’s Logic /17
Stockholm Syndrome with Death as the Captor / 19
Phobia / 21
Hemorrhage / 22
Somnambulism / 23
Empathy / 24
Afterburn / 26
The self is not a battery of tests.
Interview under Hypnosis / 29
Rorschach Test / 31
Polygraph Test / 32
X-Ray of a Rib Cage / 34
The Smoldering Hand / 35
Sound of Eye, Wind, and Limb / 37
Eye / 38
The self is not what is said about the self.
Autobiography toward a Study of the Thousand Wounds / 41
Autobiography with God Complex and Epidemic / 43
Autobiography in Not-Song and October / 45
What the Cultivation Means / 47
The Unspeakable, Said / 48
Conjugating the Void / 49
The self is not a study of the world.
There Remain New Branches / 53
World Hypothesis / 54
The Zoology of Imaginary Joy / 55
The Botany of Man-Made Things / 56
Memory: / 57
Theory of Relativity / 58
Body Thesaurus / 59
The self is not a cure.
Antidote with Attempts at Diagnosis / 63
Antidote with Placebo / 65
Antidote with Beatitudes / 67
Antidote with Early Weather / 68
Antidote with Symptoms / 69
Tourniquet / 70
Preventing a Relapse / 71
Wholeness Is an Imagined State / 75
Acknowledgments / 78