Presentation Title
Reigning in Political Animals: Syncretic Images from Animal Idioms
Presentation Type
Paper
Abstract
Animals range the idioms of American English. The pig writhing around your poke could just be a cat crawling from the Middle Ages looking for a way out of its burlap sack. The elision of history and connotation create the nexus that I excavate to fuel pataphysical explorations of animality in this selection of prose poetry from my book Ante-Animots: Idioms and Tales (BlazeVOX, 2019.) The unnatural nature of animals fossilized in language metamorphoses into a plane on which to project political impulse. Throughout the texts I layer allusions to internet memes, history, and US Popular culture.
Keywords
creative writing, animals, political animals, history, language, memes
COinS
Reigning in Political Animals: Syncretic Images from Animal Idioms
Animals range the idioms of American English. The pig writhing around your poke could just be a cat crawling from the Middle Ages looking for a way out of its burlap sack. The elision of history and connotation create the nexus that I excavate to fuel pataphysical explorations of animality in this selection of prose poetry from my book Ante-Animots: Idioms and Tales (BlazeVOX, 2019.) The unnatural nature of animals fossilized in language metamorphoses into a plane on which to project political impulse. Throughout the texts I layer allusions to internet memes, history, and US Popular culture.