Circadian , livre ebook

Red Hen Press - Chelsey Clammer

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77 pages

English

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Description

• Title covers very personal and traumatizing subject matter without slipping into over-sentimentality

• Title's addressed themes include: trauma, survival, recovery, gender, identity, and father-daughter relationships

• Title is formally inventive, lyrical and literary, in the vein of Claudia Rankine, Lidia Yuknavitch, Maggie Nelson, and Chloe Caldwell

• Title will appeal to the literary community, feminists, people who have a history of trauma, creative writing professors

• Market/publicity focus: bookstores, book clubs, awards submissions

• Author plans to tour Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City
From Circadian

Long-term: I will never escape these memories. Him, in his bathroom on the other side of my bedroom wall, howling through his pain. My ceiling and walls are covered in glow-in-the-dark stars, coaxing me to momentarily believe I am somewhere other than here. Somewhere safe, special, celestial. And then he yawps again, and I’m ripped from that feeling. I will never forget this moment.

Our brain is physically altered by the experiences we have. As we continue to live, different pathways to our histories continue to be trampled on, packed down, creating a permanent trail on which we can pace around our pasts. When we recall our memories, we re-fire the same neural pathways to get to the origins of the sense of that memory. How the smell of Diet Sprite will fizz into my nose and bring back memories of the empty cans he used to fill with vodka, the plan to be sneaky unsuccessful. And how his brain had its own path. How his hand kept returning to the bottle. A mindless motion. The circumstance of many disorders clustered inside him.

And his rituals to stop the cluster headache pain terrified me. His pacing, his shouting. Oxygen tanks tugged around by a middle-aged man. So much pain I never wanted to witness.

But I witnessed it from the very beginning.

Sujets

Vie de famille

Soutien psychologique et conseils familiaux

Mental Health

Sociologie, société et politique

Psychology

Informations

Publié par	Red Hen Press
Date de parution	03 octobre 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781597095709
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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MORE PRAISE FOR
CIRCADIAN
I have never read an interrogation of language, gender politics, or aftermath quite like Clammer s passionately searing Circadian . Though evocative of writers from Anne Carson to Kate Zambreno, Clammer s urgency and electricity here create a flash of lightning all her own.
- Gina Frangello
author of A Life of Men and Every Kind of Wanting
In these beautifully written essays, Clammer considers the intricate, confounding, and powerful connections between story and body, narrative and physical form. She examines the subject of trauma through a series of innovative frames, casting a fearless and curious gaze on her material and bringing new insights to life.
- Marya Hornbacher
New York Times bestselling author of Wasted
In sharp, beautiful language, Chelsey Clammer creates elegant, intimate prose about the violence of being female, being a daughter, the way PTSD engraves itself upon us, altering us body and mind, majorly shaping our experience of our own lives. A powerful book.
- Michelle Tea
author of Black Wave
Chelsey Clammer s new book of essays, Circadian , is a lyrical, playful, and delightfully idiosyncratic exploration of everyday wonder, language, and the poetics of pain. Her voice is surefooted and smart, deftly guiding her reader through rich landscapes of memory and meaning; but it s also equally critical and confrontational, holding a light up to experiences that demand our witness and daring us to think deeply.
- Steven Church
author of One with the Tiger
Nonfiction Editor for The Normal School

Circadian
Copyright 2017 by Chelsey Clammer
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.
Book layout by Cassidy Trier
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Clammer, Chelsey, author.
Title: Circadian : essays / Chelsey clammer.
Description: First edition. Pasadena, CA : Red Hen Press, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017011410 ISBN 9781597096034 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 9781597095709 (Ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3603.L348 A6 2017 DDC 813/.6-dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011410
The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Audrey Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Amazon Literary Partnership, and the Sherwood Foundation partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition
Published by Red Hen Press
www.redhen.org
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Another Chicago Magazine : Circadian ; Best New Writing : Twenty-Six Junctures of How I Am a Part of You ; Black Warrior Review : Mother Tongue ; Essay Daily : Body of Work, Lying in the Lyric, and Trigger Happy ; Green Mountains Review : Outline for Change ; Hobart : Re: Collection ; The James Franco Review : Then She Flew Away ; The Labletter : I Could Title This Wavering ; New Delta Review : On Three ; and Water~Stone Review : A Striking Resemblance.
To all the strong women in my life who keep me going, again and again.
CONTENTS
ON THREE
MOTHER TONGUE
TRIGGER HAPPY
A STRIKING RESEMBLANCE
I COULD TITLE THIS WAVERING
CIRCADIAN
THEN SHE FLEW AWAY
BODY OF WORK
OUTLINE FOR CHANGE
TWENTY-SIX JUNCTURES OF HOW I AM A PART OF YOU
LYING IN THE LYRIC
RE: COLLECTION
ON THREE
In order to be considered a healthy weight, a 6 2 man should weigh between 171 and 209 pounds.
His oak dresser weighs 209 pounds.
He is 6 2 and 252 pounds and fifty-two years old. The dresser is in better shape than he is.
It will take two men to move the dresser.
It will take two men to move the dresser from a 3,128 square-foot, five-bedroom house with a three-car garage into a 26-foot truck.
A football field is 57,600 square feet.
18.41 replicas of his house could fit in a football field.
Every Sunday from early fall to mid-winter, he steers his screams to the football players on TV.
Go Broncos.
After his promotion, he had the 3,128 square-foot house built to his specifications for his family. Four years later and one daughter s in Houston for college, and the other one s in Georgetown for college, and he loses his job in Austin due to all of the drinking he did at his desk, and now he and his wife have to vacate the 3,128 square feet.
In order to move a five-bedroom house, a moving company will send at least four workers to get everything loaded into their 26-foot truck within six hours. Six hours to move everything out of a five-bedroom house is plenty of time for four movers to get the job done, as long as everything goes as planned.
Ma am? We have a problem in here.
The oak dresser that is in better shape than he is, is not the problem.
A king size mattress should be wrapped in a protective sheet of plastic before it is moved onto a truck. At least 46 square feet of plastic is needed to wrap the entire mattress. The length of the plastic is not the problem.
An unhealthy 6 2 motionless man weighs down the mattress with his 252 pounds.
Sales people promise a mattress will last ten years before it needs to be replaced. However, the weight of the person on the mattress, as well as the duration that person spends on it will vary this number. Indentations in the mattress can begin to appear in as little as two years.
He lies in one of the indentations in the mattress, one of the two dips that prove he does not touch his wife at night, that she does not touch him, the separated depressions on each side of the bed like two shallow graves. His body fills the plot on the left.
A handle of 80-proof vodka contains 3,830 calories. If one were to subsist solely on a diet of one handle of 80-proof vodka per day, and if that person were to sleep the whole day and never exercise, then that person would consume a surplus of 1,330 calories a day. At this rate, a pound would be gained every 2.71 days. That s a pound every 64.96 hours. Last night, he consumed his liquid meal for the day, and then went to sleep after the Broncos game. And now he continues to sleep. He is, in fact, entering into his sixteenth hour of sleep, which means one quarter of a pound has already been added to the 252.
Ma am? We have a problem in here.
In order for a person to hear you speak clearly from 20 feet away, your voice needs to be projected at the force of 60 decibels.
The movers stand 10 feet away from his bed. It is not he who responds to their 60 decibels, but his wife. She is 30 feet away from them and behind two sets of walls as she packs up the Fiestaware in the kitchen. Their voices are a whisper, but she still hears them, or rather senses the sound of desperation brewing in the master bedroom down the hall.
The movers look at him, at each other, at the wife as she enters the room, arms immediately crossing her chest. He is a problem she does not know how to solve.
Wuzzle: word puzzle consisting of combinations of words and letters to create disguised words or phrases.
As in: NOONGOOD Good afternoon.
As in:

There is no getting up in this morning.
A fifty-two-year-old businessman with no college degree who is fired because he drinks on the job possibly does not know how to solve the problem, either. Perhaps he doesn t care to. Perhaps his life is a concept he will never get.
Jeff?
It takes the brain 0.013 seconds to understand an image the eyes see.
She stares at him as he continues to lie, conked out, the 3,830 calories of 80-proof vodka weighing his body down.
He was sober for thirteen years. That s 676 Mondays of sobriety.
It is eleven o clock on a Monday morning.
After this Monday, he will drink for another two years before he dies. That s 104 intoxicated Mondays. That s one final sip which will tip his blood-alcohol level to 0.46. That s 5.75 times the legal limit of 0.08. That s impressive.
On this Monday, he does not reply to her when she says his name. The movers look at him again, at each other, at my mother.
She sighs.
Just put him on the floor.
A man who weighs 252 pounds has to steadily drink 28.5 ounces of vodka to lose consciousness. That s just under a liter of liquor. That s 19 drinks.
I am 19 when my father doesn t move on moving day.
The movers have 46 square feet of plastic waiting to be used.
She sighs.
Just put him on the floor.
Lift with your legs, not with your back.
On the count of three.
MOTHER TONGUE
Idiom: Don t eat your words.
Condition: I can taste my words.
Diagnosis: Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia.
Lexical slinks off the tongue, its sound a little creek-like, its letters slipping over the pebbles of taste buds, the liquidy linguistics that tinkle past lips.
Gustatory fills the mouth s cavern, its weight weighing down the tongue, its full, cumbersome body heaved over lips with an ungainly gush.
Synesthesia . It stutters. It lisps. Lips confused about formation, pronunciation tangled and twisted on a tongue that knows not how or when to let go.
The shape of these sounds strung awkwardly together, one after another after another and another, create a type of lingual topography- lexical-gustatory synesthesia -where the tongue attends to the crux of its cadences, taste buds puckering, the full menu of this phrase rolling around a mouth that wants to savor its meaning. Six courses of syllables served twice.
The salivary experience of lexical-gustatory synesthesia is an interesting sense to consider. Because consider this: having lexical-gustatory synesthesia means clock transmutes into licorice on the tongue. Yes, it s true. Some people have a palate for vocabulary s succulence. Some people taste words. Chair has a chocolate flavor. Stop sign, macaroons. Skyscraper has a