Year of Award

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Degree Name

Creative Writing (Poetry)

Department or School/College

Department of English

Committee Chair

Brian Blanchfield

Commitee Members

Sean Hill, Ione Crummy

Keywords

disability studies, queer literature, cystic fibrosis, poetry

Subject Categories

Poetry

Abstract

Cystic fibrosis is a condition which thickens the mucus throughout the body of the afflicted patient. Bob Flanagan, in his book The Pain Journal, ventures to record that sort of physical experience, as it pertains to the daily practices of his art, leading up to his death. Flanagan expounds on given relationships between his sadomasochistic performance art and the pain of his body in his poem “Why.” Richard Siken, too, in his book Crush, explores the embodied violence of gay lust, love, and obsession. WET SPECIMEN finds itself amongst these traditions, as it ventures to explore the animality of the queer, erotic, cystic fibrosis body. It delights in its stickiness and is elated by messy permeability between the external and internal world. By placing the erotic self into the experiences of other creatures, WET SPECIMEN makes clear the distinction (or lack thereof) between the animal self and the human self, following in the tradition of making kin, established by writers such as Donna Haraway and Deborah Bird Rose. In its classification of disability as a way to notice more its physical sensations, this thesis engages at once with the pain of rape, the joy of the erotic, and the betrayal of the body eroding at the hand of its own machinations. Temporality and the prescient mortal self are not only imbued on the reader but made concrete to them. Just as in The Pain Journal, it is made certain that this is a speaker that will die soon, and so, is seeking love and sensual relationships in the midst of suffering.

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© Copyright 2023 Abigail Lee Raley