Visceral: The Poetry of Blood

Last updated

Visceral: The Poetry of Blood
Visceral- The Poetry of Blood.jpg
First edition
Author RJ Arkhipov
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry
PublisherZuleika
Publication date
14 June 2018
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media type Hardcover 4to
ISBN 978-1-9996232-0-3

Visceral, full title Visceral: The Poetry of Blood, is a collection of poems by the Welsh poet RJ Arkhipov, first published by Zuleika on World Blood Donor Day in 2018 when Arkhipov was 26 years old. [1] [2] [3] A miscellany of verse, essays, and photographs, Visceral was Arkhipov's first published book and cemented his name as a poet. [4]

Contents

The first poems of the collection were written in 2015 and were controversial for having been written using the author's own blood as ink in protest of the MSM blood donor controversy in the United Kingdom. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] In 2018, the renowned British sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley completed a portrait bust of the Welsh poet RJ Arkhipov. Arkhipov's experience with the sculptor inspired his poem, The Sculptor, which features among the poems in Visceral. [11] In June 2019, Visceral was long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] In November 2019, the French president Emmanuel Macron invited Arkhipov to the Élysée Palace to present his book to the library of the President of France and the First Lady of France. [6] [17]

Form and content

Noted by literary critics for its unorthodox hardback binding and quarto trim size, [4] Arkhipov himself described Visceral as 'a living, breathing, pulsing body of work through which the poetry of blood courses'. [18] The book is divided into six parts which the author describes as the work's 'organs' or 'viscera'. Each of the six chapters of Visceral contains four poems which are introduced by an essay outlining the chapter's theme and its connection with blood. [4]

Arkhipov chose a stanza from Pablo Neruda's poem La Palabra as the epigraph of Visceral. The book's foreword was written by the prominent sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley. [19]

Nació
la palabra en la sangre,
creció en el cuerpo oscuro, palpitando,
y voló con los labios y la boca.

Pablo Neruda,From "La Palabra", Plenos Poderes (1962).

Several of the poems within the book are examples of concrete poetry. In the erotic poem O, Arkhipov eschews the left-to-right writing system, opting instead to write the lines of the poem as a series concentric circles. The poem Perfect Lovers consists of two haiku, the lines of which are arranged as the hands of two adjacent clocks, mimicking an eponymous work of installation art by Félix González-Torres in which the artist placed two clocks side-by-side. [20] Other poems within the book are inspired by the constrained writing techniques of Oulipo. [18] For example, the poem A Nation's Ritual is an anagram poem written using only the letters in the naturalisation notice of the author's grandfather. [4]

Visceral is illustrated with photographs conceived by Arkhipov and captured by French photographer Maud Maillard. [2] The photographs were shot at Maxim's, a famous Art Nouveau restaurant in Paris founded in 1893. Described by a critic as 'mixing vaudevillian homoeroticism with the incongruously macabre', many of the book's photographs portray the author using his own blood as an artistic medium. In the dust jacket, the author is depicted 'shirtlessly re-enacting Alice in Wonderland', painting a spray of white roses red with his own blood. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrienne Rich</span> American poet, essayist and feminist (1929–2012)

Adrienne Cecile Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse". Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorized what she coined the "lesbian continuum", which is a female continuum of solidarity and creativity that impacts and fills women's lives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Rank-Broadley</span> British sculptor

Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS is a British sculptor who has produced many acclaimed works, among which are several designs for British coinage and the memorial statue of Princess Diana at Kensington Palace in London unveiled on her 60th birthday in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Liardet</span>

Tim Liardet is a poet twice nominated for the T. S. Eliot Prize, a critic, and Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pascale Petit (poet)</span> French-born British poet

Pascale Petit, is a French-born British poet of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. She was born in Paris and grew up in France and Wales. She trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art and was a visual artist for the first part of her life. She has travelled widely, particularly in the Peruvian and Venezuelan Amazon and India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Hollinghurst</span> English novelist

Alan James Hollinghurst is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and for his novel The Line of Beauty the 2004 Booker Prize. Hollinghurst is credited with having helped gay-themed fiction to break into the literary mainstream through his six novels since 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyril Wong</span> Singaporean poet and author

Cyril Wong is a poet, fiction author and literary critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forrest Gander</span> Poet, essayist, novelist, critic, translator (born 1956)

Forrest Gander is an American poet, translator, essayist, and novelist. The A.K. Seaver Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts & Comparative Literature at Brown University, Gander won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2019 for Be With and is chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aimee Nezhukumatathil</span> American poet

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is an American poet and essayist. Nezhukumatathil draws upon her Filipina and Malayali Indian background to give her perspective on love, loss, and land.

Viscera are an organism's internal organs.

Grahame Clive Davies CVO is a poet, author, editor, librettist, literary critic and former journalist and courtier. He was brought up in the former coal mining village of Coedpoeth near Wrexham in north east Wales.

The Montreal International Poetry Prize is a biennial poetry competition based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was launched in April 2011 during National Poetry Month.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Men who have sex with men blood donor controversy in the United Kingdom</span> Gay male blood donation policy

The MSM blood donor controversy in the United Kingdom refers to the former deferral policy of men who have had sex with men (MSM) in the United Kingdom who wish to donate their blood to UK blood donation services. Since June 2021, there is no deferral period in all four home nations. This followed an announcement in December 2020 that blood donation policies specific to MSM would be scrapped in favour of personalised risk assessment based on sexual behaviour.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danez Smith</span> American poet

Danez Smith is a poet, writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. They are queer, non-binary and HIV-positive. They are the author of the poetry collections [insert] Boy and Don't Call Us Dead: Poems, both of which have received multiple awards. Their most recent poetry collection Homie was published on January 21, 2020.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Major poetry-related events that took place worldwide during 2018 are outlined below, in various different sections. This includes poetry books released during the year in different languages, major literary awards, poetry festivals and events, besides anniversaries and deaths of renowned poets, etc. Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Adam Lowe is a British writer, performer and publisher from Leeds, though he currently lives in Manchester. He is the UK's LGBT+ History Month Poet Laureate and was Yorkshire's Poet for 2012. He writes poetry, plays and fiction, and he occasionally performs as Beyonce Holes.

Major poetry related events taking place worldwide during 2020 are outlined below under different sections. This includes poetry books released during the year in different languages, major literary awards, poetry festivals and events, besides anniversaries and deaths of renowned poets etc. Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

References

  1. ↑ "I wrote a book of poetry in my own blood to protest unfair blood donor rules for gay men". inews.co.uk. 14 June 2018. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  2. 1 2 Damshenas, Sam (30 November 2018). "RJ ARKHIPOV". Gay Times Magazine.
  3. ↑ Foundation, Thomson Reuters. "Blood donation policies unfairly stigmatise gay and bi men". news.trust.org. Retrieved 8 March 2020.{{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "RJ Arkhipov's Visceral: The Poetry of Blood should be read and reread with the enthusiasm to produce paper cuts". PinkNews. 5 October 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
  5. ↑ "This man is writing poetry in his own blood to protest gay blood donations rules". PinkNews. 23 June 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  6. 1 2 "Poet invited to present work at Elysee Palace in Paris by French President Macron". South Wales Argus. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  7. ↑ "Welsh Poet RJ Arkhipov Works With His Own Blood to Protest Ban On Gay Donors". www.out.com. 25 September 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  8. ↑ "Gay poet writes in his own blood to protest donation ban". PinkNews. 30 July 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  9. ↑ "Visceral: The Poetry of Blood". Scottish Poetry Library. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  10. ↑ "Polari on Sea – Back by Popular Demand". Hastings Independent Press. 7 September 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  11. ↑ "RJ Arkhipov". Ian Rank-Broadley. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  12. ↑ "Newport poet is the only Welsh writer longlisted for prestigious Polari First Book Prize". South Wales Argus. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  13. ↑ "Gale, McMillan and Moss make Polari Prize longlists". The Bookseller. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  14. ↑ "Andrew McMillan on longlist for Polari Prize – The Poetry Society". poetrysociety.org.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  15. ↑ "Sarah Moss among authors longlisted for Polari prize". belfasttelegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  16. ↑ "UK's Polari Book Prize Announce 2019 Longlists for LGBT Literature". Publishing Perspectives. 10 June 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  17. ↑ "Life after ULIP: RJ Arkhipov". University of London Institute in Paris. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  18. 1 2 "Visceral: The Poetry of Blood". Scottish Poetry Library. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
  19. ↑ Arkhipov, RJ (2018). Visceral: The Poetry of Blood. United Kingdom: Zuleika. ISBN   978-1-9996232-0-3.
  20. ↑ ""Untitled" (Perfect Lovers), 1990 - Felix Gonzalez-Torres - WikiArt.org". www.wikiart.org. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.