Body Thesaurus

In her second book, Jennifer Militello investigates the tensions of identity as a source of illness and health. Body Thesaurus presents the human physique as a flawed conduit and, through poems highlighting symptoms, antidotes, and diagnostic tests, seeks alternate renderings for the complexities of self. Even as the endangered psyche supplies a filter, gods are confronted, maladies are faced, and actualities are marked, remembered, or lost. The beauty of struggle and the chance for redemption act as counterstream, increasingly evident and--again and again in the poet's verse--indisputably real.