"Who Gets the Girl: A Note on Possession Flicks: Drawing Heavily on Kate Durbin’s Demon Notions, My Favorite Movies When I Was 10, and Some Other Stuff " by Danielle Pafunda

Consider the child-bride, Marie Antoinette, imported to France.

Roberto Calasso describes it thus:

Marie Antoinette entered the pavilion from the Austrian side. In the last room before the border she was slowly undressed before the escort that had accompanied her from Vienna. Not even a ribbon or a hairpin was to remain in contact with her body. She was thus offered, naked, to fabrics woven in the new French land—to the silk shift, the stockings from Lyon, the little slippers fashioned by the Court’s shoemaker… The softness of the clothes that came to her from Versailles was the embrace of the new god… This act of sacrificial stripping affected her complete transfer to the land that was clothing her with her destiny.

In This Plate, My Loose Follicles Pour Around Me

Danielle Pafunda is the author of several collections of poetry including Iatrogenic: Their Testiomines (Noemi Press), My Zorba (Bloof Books), and the forthcoming Manhater (Dusie Press Books 2012).

from The Book of Scab

by Danielle Pafunda

Click to enlarge:

Bio: Danielle Pafunda is author of Iatrogenic: Their Testimonies (Noemi Press), My Zorba (Bloof Books), Pretty Young Thing (Soft Skull Press), and the forthcoming Manhater (Dusie Press Books). She's an assistant professor of gender & women's studies and English at the University of Wyoming.

December 17th: Danielle Pafunda

The Dead Girls Speak in Unison

Hush, now. 
In a house like ours,
stay quiet. 

Keep moist
or your skin will split
and spill your secrets
across the carpet,
one stupid bagworm
after another.

Hush.  Do not disturb
our needles,
squalling thread. 

We’re stitching up
all your fancy mistakes.

We’re stitching up
your mother’s face.

We’re going to stitch you a new one.

We’re going to take our time.

 

 

 Danielle Pafunda is author of Iatrogenic: Their Testimonies (Noemi Press 2010), My Zorba (Bloof Books), Pretty Young Thing (Soft Skull Press), and the forthcoming Manhater (Dusie Press Books). She's an assistant professor of Gender & Women's studies and English at the University of Wyoming.

Day 21: Danielle Pafunda

Danielle Pafunda is the author of Iatrogenic: Their Testimonies (Noemi Press forthcoming this winter), My Zorba (Bloof Books), Pretty Young Thing (Soft Skull Press), and a fourth collection Manhater slated for Dusie Press Books. She is a member of the WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts) Advisory Board, and assistant professor of gender & women's studies and English at the University of Wyoming. She has just received a grant to travel to New Orleans and take the most lurid vampire tours the city has to offer.

Poetics Forum #2: Deviant Beach Reads

Click on the links below, or scroll down to skip this intro! This forum includes a DIY option. If you'd like to suggest a Deviant Beach Read, fill out the following form (take your liberties!), and post it in the comments field.

Title and author of your pick for Deviant Beach Reads:
Six words that describe this book:
When I first read this book, I...
When I finished this book, I...
This book will...
This book [verb]
This book is a [adjective noun].
A favorite quote from book:

Please write a blurb, endorsement, homage, imitation, or the like re: the experimental/innovative/feminist/deviant woman fiction writer of your choice. You may choose one of her works, or many. You may write about yourself if you write fiction. Has this work been important to you as a poet? As a feminist? Mother? Daughter? Partner? Human? Is this work right for the beach? Is it edifying? Should it be? Is it a destroyer of worlds? When did you first encounter the work? To whom would you give this work? What kind of noise in your head does this work produce? Etc.!

Monday June 1:
Michele Battiste on Emma Donoghue
Cara Benson on Marianne Apostolides
Mary Biddinger on Banana Yoshimoto

Tuesday June 2:
Michelle Detorie on Carol Emshwiller
Kate Durbin on Angela Carter & Joan Didion
Elisa Gabbert on Joy Williams

Wednesday June 3:
Brandi Homan on Selah Saterstrom
Becca Klaver on Miranda July
Kathleen Ossip on Jennifer Moxley

Thursday June 4:
Evie Shockley on Renee Gladman & Selah Saterstrom
Elizabeth Treadwell on Janet Frame

Friday June 5:
Erika Meitner on Marjane Satrapi
Sarah Murphy on Margo Lanagan & Maggie Stiefvater

Curated by Danielle Pafunda


Past Forums & Features:
May 2009: This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like curated by Danielle Pafunda

December 2008: Advent Kalendar! curated by Susana Gardner

May 2008: Disarming, Destabilizing, & Creeping Out the Patriarchy a Conversation on the Gurlesque with Arielle Greenberg and Danielle Pafunda

February 2008: Dim Sum Being several & a few responses to the trio of "Numbers Trouble" articles in last fall's Chicago Review curated by Elizabeth Treadwell


Future Forums (subject to change and mutation):
July 2009: Summer break, no forum planned, read something deviant.

August 2009: TBA curated by K. Lorraine Graham & Becca Klaver

Fall 2009: Non-normative bodies,(pro)feminist men poets, and This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like Part 2!

Talk:

Featuring:
Monday May 4: Mary Biddinger, Anne Boyer, & Brandi Homan
Tuesday May 5: Megan Kaminski, Becca Klaver, & Majena Mafe
Wednesday May 6: Gina Myers, Martha Silano, & Leah Souffrant
Thursday May 7: K. Lorraine Graham, Elizabeth Treadwell
     & Sarah Vap
Friday May 8: Teresa Carmody, Kim Rosenfield, Vanessa Place,
     & Christine Wertheim

Some blogger responses:
Catherine Daly here.

Feministing's Community page here.

Jeannine Hall Gailley here.

Becca Klaver here.

Reb Livingston here and here.

Adam Robinson here.

Mark Wallace here.

Stan Apps here.

You! Right here at Delirious Hem.

Featuring:
Monday May 4: Mary Biddinger, Anne Boyer, & Brandi Homan
Tuesday May 5: Megan Kaminski, Becca Klaver, & Majena Mafe
Wednesday May 6: Gina Myers, Martha Silano, & Leah Souffrant
Thursday May 7: K. Lorraine Graham, Elizabeth Treadwell
     & Sarah Vap
Friday May 8: Teresa Carmody, Kim Rosenfield, Vanessa Place,
     & Christine Wertheim

Click on the above links to view the pieces, or scroll down to skip this intro!

There are likely as many strains and modes of feminist poetics as there are of feminism, but in reviews, discussions, and even our own manifestos, we often fall into shorthand that fails to explore this valuable friction, our own variations. I've lately longed for unpacking, and so issued this open-ended call:

This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like: what branch of feminism, model of feminist poetics, feminist icon, or etc. informs your poetry? Or, from which of these does your poetry diverge? Are there particular feminist tactics you employ? Do you consider yourself a feminist in many ways, but don't particularly involve it in the poetry? Feel free to take liberties with the questions! Short, long, essay, manifesto, whatever appeals to you!

Curated by Danielle Pafunda

This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like

To skip this intro and go directly to the forum, please scroll down to the next post!

Welcome to our first forum, where each day this week you will find new responses.




Featuring:
Monday May 4: Mary Biddinger, Anne Boyer, & Brandi Homan
Tuesday May 5: Megan Kaminski, Becca Klaver, & Majena Mafe
Wednesday May 6: Gina Myers, Martha Silano, & Leah Souffrant
Thursday May 7: K. Lorraine Graham, Mytili Jagannathan,   Elizabeth Treadwell, & Sarah Vap
Friday May 8: Teresa Carmody & co.

There are likely as many strains and modes of feminist poetics as there are of feminism, but in reviews, discussions, and even our own manifestos, we often fall into shorthand that fails to explore this valuable friction, our own variations. I've lately longed for unpacking, and so issued this open-ended call:

This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like: what branch of feminism, model of feminist poetics, feminist icon, or etc. informs your poetry? Or, from which of these does your poetry diverge? Are there particular feminist tactics you employ? Do you consider yourself a feminist in many ways, but don't particularly involve it in the poetry? Feel free to take liberties with the questions! Short, long, essay, manifesto, whatever appeals to you!

Curated by Danielle Pafunda

New: Poetics Forums at Delirious Hem

Delirious Hem's monthly poetics forums are designed to give women poets a platform from which to address topics we all grapple with, obsess over, cram down the craws of our cohabitant lovelies. DH's poetics forums invite creato-critico-bio-cultural-multi-dimensional responses. Political personal public private. Theory-rich, yammer-strung, high-octane, molecular-fringe. DH's poetics forums invite contributors to drop in briefly or never shut up. We hope you'll do the same (see fig. 1, the comments box).

On May 4th, we'll launch our first forum:




Featuring:
Monday May 4: Mary Biddinger, Anne Boyer, & Brandi Homan
Tuesday May 5: Megan Kaminski, Becca Klaver, & Majena Mafe
Wednesday May 6: Gina Myers, Martha Silano, & Leah Souffrant
Thursday May 7: K. Lorraine Graham, Mytili Jagannathan,   Elizabeth Treadwell, & Sarah Vap
Friday May 8: Teresa Carmody & co.

There are likely as many strains and modes of feminist poetics as there are of feminism, but in reviews, discussions, and even our own manifestos, we often fall into shorthand that fails to explore this valuable friction, our own variations. I've lately longed for unpacking, and so issued this open-ended call:

This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like: what branch of feminism, model of feminist poetics, feminist icon, or etc. informs your poetry? Or, from which of these does your poetry diverge? Are there particular feminist tactics you employ? Do you consider yourself a feminist in many ways, but don't particularly involve it in the poetry? Feel free to take liberties with the questions! Short, long, essay, manifesto, whatever appeals to you!

Curated by Danielle Pafunda

danielle pafunda

*

On the Bearskin Rug in Front of the Fire I Construct the Following Tableau:

Down so long that down does not even look like up from below, here, a braided cell. A string rag band, a sluicing of dull old assembly of dull old limbs, fore to aft, and shin to spinet, a small electric organ, and even the variety show known as legs hooked behind back, ear to thigh, the swift crotch. A diagram in ash and jimmies says here’s to fuck it ‘til you reel again. Narrate: Whatever. Unhhhh.

On the Bearskin Rug in Front of the Fire I Construct the Following Tableau:

The undead shirk, circle, shirk in their Bondo-clogged antennae hole. Here's a bosom town on the skids. Here's a big hole in the crush rag where the undead stuff their 1994. Over here, I'm gonna pin up that tongue that used to lick me far and wide and I'm gonna apple soak it and I'm gonna go more red in the face than green. Narrate: Better. Bitters.

*

Danielle Pafunda is the author of My Zorba (Bloof Books), Pretty Young Thing (Soft Skull Press), and the forthcoming Iatrogenic: Their Testimonies (Noemi Books). She is co-editor of the online journal La Petite Zine, and teaches women’s studies, creative writing, and English literature at the University of Wyoming.

Feed Your Gurliosity

The blogs are a'buzz. Love, hate, boredom, cooler than thou, less cool than thou, deformed lust, where did I put my pseudo-vacuous speakface?

Fraught stuff over at Johannes Goransson's. You can read them in order with their attendant resplendent comment streams:

1. Gurlesque
2. Gurlesque (few more notes)
3. Gurlesque (brief note)
4. Valley Girl
5. Gurlesque
6. Lara Glenum on Gurlesque (see above post coming soon!)

K. Lorraine Graham reflects and questions in her ever-sharp fashion, and reminds us what it means to got back:
1. Still thinking about bad girls, and also Gurlesque
2. I like the grotesque. Going back to the moment of horror again and again is soothing.
3. My butt is like, so not big, but whatever

Elizabeth Treadwell gives good disgust with OMG, coy?

Jilly Dybka muses on why her work hasn't got that Gurlesque thing, but has got plenty of nails up noses and other such thrills!

And K. Silem Mohammad is totally using up the culture trash poem garbage--leave some unicorns for the rest of us, Kasey! You are a unicorn hog!

Sianne Ngai's indispensable in relation.

Also, Johannes points us to this great poetics statement by Ariana Reines, "Sucking"

and if you haven't read this story by my admired co-conspirator Alissa Nutting, then you are missing the heartsmashing business of a Gurlesque-ish fiction. If that's shameless friend-promotion, I don't care. It's a really good story. It has poop, psychedelics, mastectomies, and clam shaped bed love.

The final segment of my chat with Arielle will go up over the weekend.