The Second Body

by Claire Donato

Poetry. "What is THE SECOND BODY? Alice in the pit of despair, humming pop songs and practicing inversions. The ocean, sex, void, women. Dead chickens. 'Doves at the edge of the lake / Falling across the age of the computer.' A bomb going off on the patriarchy. Gloom and glee, bones and teeth: this is how Claire Donato is trying to describe the world to you." Kate Durbin"

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2016

About the author

Claire Donato is most recently the author of Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts (2023), a collection of short fictions. Her previous titles include Burial (2013), a fiction novella, and The Second Body (2016), a full-length collection of poems. Her work has been included in numerous anthologies, and recent writing has appeared in Parapraxis, Forever, The End, The Brooklyn Rail, Fence, The Chicago Review, BOMB, Blue Arrangements, and GoldFlakePaint. She also contributed an introduction to The One on Earth: Selected Works of Mark Baumer. In addition to writing books, Claire makes music, illustrates, and has a 35mm photography practice. Currently, she works as Assistant Chairperson of Writing at Pratt Institute, where she received the 2020-2021 Distinguished Teacher Award, and is a candidate at Pulsion: The International Institute of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychosomatics. She lives in Brooklyn with her cat Woebegone.

Reviews

[Brooks Sterritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Can a sentence assume the guise of a body?"

[Ryan Bollenbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite collection of poetry I've read in a long time. Super recommended.