Cyborg Detective

by Jillian Weise

Overview

An NPR Favorite Book of 2019

In her third collection of poems, Jillian Weise delivers a reckoning to the ableism of the Western Canon. These poems investigate and challenge the ways that nondisabled writers have appropriated disabled bodies, from calling out William Carlos Williams to biohacking Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” to chronicling the ongoing headlines of violence against disabled women. Part invective, part love poem, Cyborg Detective holds a magnifying glass to the marginalization and fetishization of disabled people while claiming space and pride for the people who already use technology and cybernetic implants every day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942683858
Publisher:	BOA Editions, Ltd.
Publication date:	09/03/2019
Series:	American Poets Continuum , #174
Pages:	112
Sales rank:	671,231
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Jillian Weise is a poet, performance artist and disability rights activist. Her first book of poetry, The Amputee’s Guide to Sex, was recently reissued in a 10th anniversary edition with a new preface. Her second book of poetry, The Book of Goodbyes, won the 2013 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and the 2013 Isabella Gardner Award from BOA Editions. Cyborg Detective is her third poetry collection. Weise identifies as a cyborg, and her essays on cyborg identity and disability rights have appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and elsewhere. She hosts a series of satirical videos highlighting literary ableism under the persona Tispy Tullivan.

Table of Contents

I

Poem Conveyed 9

On Closed Systems 10

Catullus Tells Me Not to Write the Rant Against Maggie Smith's "Good Bones" 16

The Phantom Limbs of the Poets 17

Regulatory Capture 18

10 Postcards to Marie Howe 19

Of the Impending Mission 21

Conveyor to Jael 22

II

What You Need to Know 25

Evangelize Your Love 26

Variation on a Wedding 27

The Early American Hour 28

Should You Send That Text 29

Variation on the Disabled Poet Emily Dickinson's #745 30

Beside You on Main Street 31

I Want Your Fax 32

What Thou Lovest 33

No Stopping, No Getting Off 34

III

Cathedral by Raymond Carver 37

IV

Public Ecstasy 49

Variants of Unknown Significance 50

I Had a Little Cash 51

Attack List 52

Confession 56

Rahab 57

V

Nondisabled Demands 61

Some Rights 62

Imaginary Interview 63

The Responsibility of the Poet in the Voice of Ray Bradbury as Channeled by the Cyborg Jillian Weise 68

Biohack Manifesto 69

Future Biometrics 74

Anticipatory Action 75

Notes 77

Acknowledgments 79

About the Author 81

Colophon 88

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“With a voice that is sassy, funny, and justifiably bitter, Weise sets ableist America — and America's literary subcultures — straight about a number of things in her third collection, in which every line snaps and many of them sting.”
—Craig Morgan Teicher, NPR Poetry Preview 2019

“Anger, clarity, an unrelenting unforgiving ear; funny, hot, intelligent, wise, challenging, outrageous and cool. Jillian Weise is simply among the small league of my favorite poets on earth. With Cyborg Detective she’s even more so. She’s ONLY AWAKE and freely and incisively shares all that comes with that awesome and sinuous burden.”
—Eileen Myles

“The poems in Jillian Weise’s Cyborg Detective concern the nature of affliction. Which is not to say it’s not humorous; it is, in fact, hilarious, deeply and darkly so. Populated with a variety of voices that speak with a sort of sly candor that can only be prompted by the most intimate of inquiries, this book is a true ventriloquist act. With a thrilling lack of remorse, Weise targets the mundane viciousness of everyday hypocrisy like a heat-seeking missile.”
—Cate Marvin

"These poems are brilliant and funny and sad and utterly essential. They will completely unravel you in the most marvelous possible way."
—Lev Grossman

“Cyborg Detective investigates the way we peer into the Abled world, and finds confusion and terror in the reflection. It is a relief and joy to read."
—Karolyn Gehrig, creator of #HospitalGlam

Editorial Reviews

With a voice that is sassy, funny, and justifiably bitter, Weise sets ableist America — and America's literary subcultures — straight about a number of things in her third collection, in which every line snaps and many of them sting.”
—Craig Morgan Teicher, NPR Poetry Preview 2019

“Here—and almost nowhere else in American poetry—we have an anarchic sharp-fanged satirist of the very first rank.”
—RHINO

“Cyborg Detective looks into the past as it pushes into the future. Moving deftly between engaging with canonical authors and broken engagements, between Torah and Tinder, Weise focuses on the many ways we see the parts and not the whole and the consequences thereof.”
—American Literary Review

“Always sharp-witted, sophisticatedly savvy, and commanding in surprisingly vulnerable ways, Weise’s poems remind me that the stakes are high, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.”
—The Rumpus

“Anger, clarity, an unrelenting unforgiving ear; funny, hot, intelligent, wise, challenging, outrageous and cool. Jillian Weise is simply among the small league of my favorite poets on earth. With Cyborg Detective she’s even more so. She’s ONLY AWAKE and freely and incisively shares all that comes with that awesome and sinuous burden.”
—Eileen Myles

“The poems in Jillian Weise’s Cyborg Detective concern the nature of affliction. Which is not to say it’s not humorous; it is, in fact, hilarious, deeply and darkly so. Populated with a variety of voices that speak with a sort of sly candor that can only be prompted by the most intimate of inquiries, this book is a true ventriloquist act. With a thrilling lack of remorse, Weise targets the mundane viciousness of everyday hypocrisy like a heat-seeking missile.”
—Cate Marvin

"These poems are brilliant and funny and sad and utterly essential. They will completely unravel you in the most marvelous possible way."
—Lev Grossman

“Cyborg Detective investigates the way we peer into the Abled world, and finds confusion and terror in the reflection. It is a relief and joy to read."
—Karolyn Gehrig, creator of #HospitalGlam

From the Publisher