Artist's Statement and Poems
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5283/copas.298Abstract
Laura Passin’s powerful artist’s statement offers signposts for our reading of her poetry in which clear-cut distinctions between health and illness dissolve and the speaker straddles the divides of Susan Sontag’s famous “kingdom of the sick and kingdom of the well” (3), as Passin locates herself “with one foot in both kingdoms, not certain in which one my center of gravity leans.” Her work is at once deeply subjective, personal and intimate, as well as political. It prompts us to reflect on the role of the poet as interpreter—of others unable to speak for themselves and of one’s own, at times fragile and utterly temporary, citizenship in Sontag’s kingdom of the well. In doing so, it raises pivotal questions of authority.
(Tanja Reiffenrath and Gesine Wegner “Dis-eased: Critical Approaches to Disability and Illness in American Studies”)
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