University of Chicago Press
Mandible Wishbone Solvent
About this book
The poetry of Mandible Wishbone Solvent is situated in the space of bridges, fragmentary overlays, spectral reach, and the desire to keep reaching. Asiya Wadud’s poems engage in this act, not to stake a claim or to fasten themselves, but to hold fragments together in order to offer possibilities for connection and extension. Throughout the collection lies an acknowledgment that any hold will drift, meander, and find new paths, with each separation making space for new entanglements. Drawing on a keen interest in tactility and ekphrasis, Wadud mines the repetition and extension that comes with any fractured state of existence and considers the nature of a residual and roving we.
Following this selection of lyrical, ekphrastic, fragmented poems, the book concludes with two prose pieces that dwell on the concepts of “isthmus” and “drift,” respectively, which offer further grounds for contemplation and provide a frame for the poems.
Author / Editor information
Reviews
“The evocative title of Wadud's fifth poetry collection, Mandible Wishbone Solvent, sets the stage for her interrogation of language, its three words creating a compelling assemblage of diction and metaphor. . . . Whether Wadud offers the reader ekphrastic resonse, abstract image, lyric fragment, or prose ligature, the concept of the Isthmus Condition motivates her to dissolve borders and bridge gaps. Throughout Mandible Wishbone Solvent, she wrestles with the deadened language of her medium to discover a contemporary expression of connection . . . This new expression transcends antiquated beliefs, institutional structures, and national identities, instead emphasizing that artful discourse is what can bring us into association.”
— Jami Macarty, Rain TaxiTopics
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Frontmatter
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Contents
xi - Part 1: Other Ovals All Along
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Image
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#221 ½
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poised in hover hours
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seven desire lines one map
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disclose concentric centers
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the herring arrive as overture
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all excess bloomed then felled
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and green waters and green
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be a bridge over something
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1.2
31 - Part 2: Scant Excess Enclosed in a Film
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Mandible Wishbone Solvent
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Shorn, treaded, red
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a symmetrical open plane, curve
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In the checkpoint I was all arms / all face
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the disc takes shape, dear cutlass
43 - Part 3: Microplane Weights / Accounts of First Contact
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my mind makes for me a window then a door
58 - Part 4: The Shroud Can Encase Whatever We Tell It
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Nearly Any Two Things Can Cohere
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Acknowledgments
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Drift: Against proximal distance from the center
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