Tarsila do Amaral, “Composição (Figura só) (Composition [Lonely Figure])” (1930), oil on canvas (photo by Elisa Wouk Almino/Hyperallergic)
LANDSCAPE WITHOUT FORM
critical theory of an extensible self
they placed me in the meadow and so I was in the meadow
woman producing
gender affecting
forming the basis for much poetry
I think riding a horse is idiotic, sue me
in order to assert transcendence
the romantic poet
the romantic poe
t the romantic po
et the romantic p
oet the romantic
poet the romanti
c poet the romant
ic poet the roman
tic poet the roma
ntic poet the rom
antic poet the ro
mantic poet the r
omantic poet the
romantic poet th
e romantic poet t
he romantic poet
female figure who inhabits
I strangle myself with my own hair
I rearrange my body
recuperating the love of man through the love of nature, shut up
I do not want to be your wife
an abstract but unassailable force
he desires
how different is our mourning
the speaker stands
the speaker is experienced
I memorized the slaughter
I was acculturated and socialized
I have been a disappointment,
of affection,
of primitiveness,
I fail to read the lyric
I fail to read the lyri
c I fail to read the lyr
ic I fail to read the ly
ric I fail to read the l
yric I fail to read the
lyric I fail to read th
e lyric I fail to read t
he lyric I fail to read
the lyric I fail to rea
d the lyric I fail to re
ad the lyric I fail to r
ead the lyric I fail to
read the lyric I fail t
o read the lyric I fail
to read the lyric I fai
l to read the lyric I fa
il to read the lyric I f
ail to read the lyric I
fail to read the lyric
* * *
Julianne Neely received her MFA degree from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, where she received the Truman Capote Fellowship, the 2017 John Logan Poetry Prize, and a Schupes Prize for Poetry. Her writing has been published in VIDA, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Iowa Review, and more. Her chapbook The Body Beside Herself is out now from Slope Editions.
