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The Danger Model |
eBook Available
Evocative poems about art, illness, identity, and the paradoxes of authenticity.
Is the self inside the body / or is it the body / or can it leave?
"How can you ask a question that you live inside?" Madelaine Caritas Longman's debut is an affecting, intelligent engagement with the often-paradoxical pursuit of self-coherence and self-presence. These prose poems, haiku, and experiments with language and form not only examine the individual search for identity but call into question the concept itself.
Inhabiting contexts as diverse as the medical system, performance art, queer adolescence, and Talmudic debate, The Danger Model considers what it means to be a "self." Searching for answers in Internet forums, the work of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, and the films and installations of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, Longman brings attention to the lived experience of mental and physical illness and attempts to make meaning out of it. Disarmingly candid, intellectually rigorous, and surprisingly funny, these poems explore the luxury and burden of subjectivity by showing us what it is like to struggle to attach oneself to the world through specific desires and needs.
Provocatively realistic but also hopeful, The Danger Model is an investigation of how we come to recognize - or not recognize - ourselves and each other.
"How can you ask a question that you live inside?" Madelaine Caritas Longman's debut is an affecting, intelligent engagement with the often-paradoxical pursuit of self-coherence and self-presence. These prose poems, haiku, and experiments with language and form not only examine the individual search for identity but call into question the concept itself.
Inhabiting contexts as diverse as the medical system, performance art, queer adolescence, and Talmudic debate, The Danger Model considers what it means to be a "self." Searching for answers in Internet forums, the work of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, and the films and installations of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, Longman brings attention to the lived experience of mental and physical illness and attempts to make meaning out of it. Disarmingly candid, intellectually rigorous, and surprisingly funny, these poems explore the luxury and burden of subjectivity by showing us what it is like to struggle to attach oneself to the world through specific desires and needs.
Provocatively realistic but also hopeful, The Danger Model is an investigation of how we come to recognize - or not recognize - ourselves and each other.
Details
Part of the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series (number 51 in series)
152 Pages, 5 x 7.5
ISBN 9780773558854
October 2019
Formats: Paperback, eBook
“These immersive, polyphonic poems document a self that doubts whether it is one. Though they are hard to live inside, I keep returning to them, exhilarated at the alchemy that transforms anguish into art. With a courage born of necessity and an urgent, searing beauty, Longman words the unwordable.” Stephanie Bolster, author of A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth and White Stone
“The Danger Model forges a poetics of living inquiry. With a focused and curious gaze, Longman examines how language stretches emotional and physical realities and interrogates the fraught alchemy of existence. These poems shimmer with their own iridescent strength and vulnerability.” Adèle Barclay, author of If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You
“‘At what point does a thought / become an illness,’ infecting lover, self, and God with ghost-adversaries? It’s Longman’s meditation on this body of truth, ‘letting in both birdsong / and rot,’ that bears witness to one of the most epic poems of self-healing fidelity, in the face of paralyzing self-harm, I have ever read.” Weyman Chan, author of Noise from the Laundry and Human Tissue
“The Danger Model is layered in perspective and vision, image and symbol, stillness and movement, light and darkness. Longman brings the modality of polarity into one pinpoint, shattering all convention at the same time. This work seems to breathe - has a life of its own - and is written by a brilliant new voice who embodies the thinking of ‘the new way of being and seeing’ with the soul of an ancient sage. You will see moments of your own life in these pages.”Sheri-D Wilson, author of The Book of Sensations and Re:Zoom
"This is poet's poetry, written with keen attention to inner harmonies and the see-saw of words. In an era of Instagram-driven micro-poetry, aka 'Like Poems,' all flimsy and whimsy, The Danger Model is an actual book crammed with actual poems. A vivid, fearless re-visiting of beloved free verse tropes, from dense, manic prose poems to singing, call-and-response, otherworldly hymns. A generous book, The Danger Model hardly feels like a first book. Rather the opposite - a collected works by a senior poet." Quebec Writers' Federation Concordia University First Book Prize jury
“The Danger Model forges a poetics of living inquiry. With a focused and curious gaze, Longman examines how language stretches emotional and physical realities and interrogates the fraught alchemy of existence. These poems shimmer with their own iridescent strength and vulnerability.” Adèle Barclay, author of If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You
“‘At what point does a thought / become an illness,’ infecting lover, self, and God with ghost-adversaries? It’s Longman’s meditation on this body of truth, ‘letting in both birdsong / and rot,’ that bears witness to one of the most epic poems of self-healing fidelity, in the face of paralyzing self-harm, I have ever read.” Weyman Chan, author of Noise from the Laundry and Human Tissue
“The Danger Model is layered in perspective and vision, image and symbol, stillness and movement, light and darkness. Longman brings the modality of polarity into one pinpoint, shattering all convention at the same time. This work seems to breathe - has a life of its own - and is written by a brilliant new voice who embodies the thinking of ‘the new way of being and seeing’ with the soul of an ancient sage. You will see moments of your own life in these pages.”Sheri-D Wilson, author of The Book of Sensations and Re:Zoom
"This is poet's poetry, written with keen attention to inner harmonies and the see-saw of words. In an era of Instagram-driven micro-poetry, aka 'Like Poems,' all flimsy and whimsy, The Danger Model is an actual book crammed with actual poems. A vivid, fearless re-visiting of beloved free verse tropes, from dense, manic prose poems to singing, call-and-response, otherworldly hymns. A generous book, The Danger Model hardly feels like a first book. Rather the opposite - a collected works by a senior poet." Quebec Writers' Federation Concordia University First Book Prize jury
Madelaine Caritas Longman is a PhD candidate in interdisciplinary humanities at Concordia University. This is her first book.
white infinity net / 3
TRANSFORMATIONAL IMPULSES
alone in hotels / 9
Petrocan / 12
broken sunrise / 13
room without walls / 14
tall grass / 16
Performance Piece: On the Crowd / 17
Interlude: Parking Lot / 19
through the train window / 21
Accumulation of Light in Eyelids / 22
stars between / 24
So / 25
Green Halo / 26
the old woman’s hands / 28
Strangelove Syndrome / 29
[borderline: talk] / 31
shadows on the moon / 33
Ode to Pessoa / 34
DEAR VOID
all i remember about The World According to Garp / 39
Alexithymia / 40
Narcissus Sea / 52
Elegy for Lawrence Hong / 56
rain in the cedars / 59
that summer / 60
mourning / 61
in human rooms / 62
Invincible / 63
Performance Piece: On Historia / 65
Performance Piece: On Hallucination / 68
Performance Piece: On Sincerity / 70
Kusama’s Self-Obliteration / 77
Iatrogenesis / 82
I write the word REAL in red pen repeatedly down my forearm / 84
Narcissus Garden / 87
a shirt hung over a kitchen chair / 89
Intersection / 90
Book of Judges / 92
Insomnia / 109
SOMETHING LIKE LIVING
cracks / 113
Tomatoes and Vinegar / 115
fullness / 116
January grass / 118
After Trainspotting / 119
first argument / 122
On Compromise / 123
After The Hours / 124
new year’s morning / 126
Drumheller / 127
creeksong / 129
Blank / 130
Acts of Daily Living / 132
Notes and Sources / 135
Acknowledgments / 141
TRANSFORMATIONAL IMPULSES
alone in hotels / 9
Petrocan / 12
broken sunrise / 13
room without walls / 14
tall grass / 16
Performance Piece: On the Crowd / 17
Interlude: Parking Lot / 19
through the train window / 21
Accumulation of Light in Eyelids / 22
stars between / 24
So / 25
Green Halo / 26
the old woman’s hands / 28
Strangelove Syndrome / 29
[borderline: talk] / 31
shadows on the moon / 33
Ode to Pessoa / 34
DEAR VOID
all i remember about The World According to Garp / 39
Alexithymia / 40
Narcissus Sea / 52
Elegy for Lawrence Hong / 56
rain in the cedars / 59
that summer / 60
mourning / 61
in human rooms / 62
Invincible / 63
Performance Piece: On Historia / 65
Performance Piece: On Hallucination / 68
Performance Piece: On Sincerity / 70
Kusama’s Self-Obliteration / 77
Iatrogenesis / 82
I write the word REAL in red pen repeatedly down my forearm / 84
Narcissus Garden / 87
a shirt hung over a kitchen chair / 89
Intersection / 90
Book of Judges / 92
Insomnia / 109
SOMETHING LIKE LIVING
cracks / 113
Tomatoes and Vinegar / 115
fullness / 116
January grass / 118
After Trainspotting / 119
first argument / 122
On Compromise / 123
After The Hours / 124
new year’s morning / 126
Drumheller / 127
creeksong / 129
Blank / 130
Acts of Daily Living / 132
Notes and Sources / 135
Acknowledgments / 141
Winner
Quebec Writers Federation
Concordia University First Book Prize
2020
Longlist
Royal City Literary Arts Society
Fred Cogswell Award For Excellence in Poetry
2020
Quebec Writers Federation
Concordia University First Book Prize
2020
Longlist
Royal City Literary Arts Society
Fred Cogswell Award For Excellence in Poetry
2020
