Karyotype

by Kim Trainor

A remarkable debut that expresses a humanism grounded in physiology. At the heart of Karyotype is the Beauty of Loulan, a woman who lived four thousand years ago, her body preserved in the cool, dry sands of the Taklamakan Desert. Karyotype's poems range from the title sequence, which explores the DNA and woven textiles of this woman and her vanished people (a karyotype is the characteristic chromosome complement of a species), to the firebombing of the National Library of Sarajevo, from an abecedarian hymn on the International Red Cross "Book of Belongings" to the experience of watching the televised invasion of Iraq in the dark of a Montreal night. The Beauty of Loulan becomes a symbol of the ephemerality of human genetic and cultural texts, and of our chances for survival. And then there was Liu Baiqiang
sentenced to 18 years for "Counter-Revolutionary Incitement"
who attached words to the legs of locusts Tyranny! Long Live Freedom! and flung them over the walls
of his prison, into the air.
- from "On the ordering of chaotic bodies of poetry" " Karyotype is for me a crucial text in the work of re-imagining what it is to be human? I am grateful, as well as inspired, to find an artwork performing this essential task." - Don McKay

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2015

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not usually a fan of long poems, but they seem to be Trainor’s strength. The title poem, “Karyotype” and the last poem “Nothing is lost” were vivid and haunting. I especially liked the alphabet-form of the latter. Trainor interweaves a lot of voices in her poetry from various sources. It gives a sense of an academic, balancing research with poetry.

[Liz Mc2]

I loved the recurring images and themes woven through these poems. The final poem, on the “Book of Belongings” found in mass graves around Srebrenica, will stay with me for a long time, as will the mummies. Fragments of words, of objects, of people—what remains.

I don’t rate poetry. Disclosure: Kim is my colleague and if I hadn’t liked her poems I would not have said nothing about them. I admired this collection very much and look forward to her next in October.