The Body in Poetry.

 

The video is Andrea Gibson preforming her poem, “I Sing the Body Electric, Especially When the Power’s Out”. I thought this was fantastic because it does self-consciously reflect the ways in which we take our bodies for granted until something is wrong. She points out that she wrote the poem when her body was hurting her – this is a reflexive way to recognize that the body exists. Her poem, however, extends pass that and praises the body as a machine in poetry. The imagery really counts towards her overall message. Body parts are representative of their function and ultimately, their worth.

The body does so much, but we also picture the internal features as something much more pristine. The use of heart beats keeping rhythm, of the mouth as a fire escape, and the smoke in her lungs points to the ability of the internal body to ampify our natural processes. What resonated with me the most were the lines about her injuring her body and the doctor assuming it was for attention. I feel like that’s one of the ground rules we’re expected to take about the body: we’re blessed to have it and should appreciate everything it does, so those who do modify the body are transcending the whole “body is a temple” concept