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Invocation

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[Sing to me, O Muse, of]

Failure to integrate
(various aspects of)
identity/memory/consciousness --
personality states
(Criterion A)

Too great to be
explained
[There is more than one of
me. Inside I am
many,
to survive] by
ordinary forgetfulness
(Criterion B)

The disturbance
[There has been
a domestic disturbance
in the quiet white house
across the street
from the school]
must involve
the characteristic symptoms
(Criterion C)

In rare instances
[a domestic disturbance
in the quiet white house]
the person
experiences dissociative states
[Inside,
there is more than one]

during which the event is
relived [over and
over and
over and]
recurrent and
intrusive

failure to integrate
(various aspects of)
[a domestic disturbance
in the quiet white house]
identity/memory/consciousness

following exposure to
an extreme
traumatic stressor
[I am
many, to survive.]
(Criterion D)

Author's Notes/Comments: 

The opening poem to what would have been my senior thesis, though I was not able to complete it. The explanation is lengthy, but as short as I can make it, it was a tribute to my mother, a survivor of severe abuse, Multiple Personality Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, using imagery and form taken from Greek epics. The above is partly taken from the clinical definitions of those two disorders and re-pieced to fit my purpose.

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last updated 28 October 2010 - 6:30pm
©7 May 2010 - 3:39pm — lettersfromorual
7 May 2010 - 11:23pm — kerry
kerry's picture

These poems are fine - whether or not they were part of a thesis - they stand out on their own.

kerry

 

http://kerrybrennan007.blogspot.ca

12 April 2013 - 2:14am — allets
allets's picture

Thanks for the Evolutionary Details

But I agree with kerry, it stands emphatically on its own - I was diggin' it - from my college daze (yrs).  Speaking in tongues is like "lecture speak" or "book writ" - I read & wrote up all that jargon and spiel and only use it when I read a poem like yours - Epistomology anyone?  :D - be well ~~Lady A~~