Malaria, Poems

Malaria, Poems

Cameron Conaway
Copyright Date: 2014
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt7zt4mc
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  • Book Info
    Malaria, Poems
    Book Description:

    Malaria kills nearly one million people each year. Hundreds of millions more are sickened by the disease, and many of them are permanently disabled. Billions are spent each year to understand it. Researchers know the molecular details of the interaction between the mosquito and our own red blood cells, and the myriad ways in which malaria impacts the global economy and the advancement of humanity. But what of the public? Though its story is told in thousands of articles and in hundreds of books, many in the developed world are unaware of how prevalent malaria still is.Malaria, Poemstestifies to the importance of bridging the chasm between science and art. It adds thread to a tattered and tragic global narrative; it is poetry's attempt to reawaken care in a cold case that keeps killing. According to Cicero the aim of the orator is threefold: to teach, to delight, and to move. Poets during the renaissance embraced this idea, and Malaria, Poems reinvigorates it. Allen Ginsberg called for a poetry of social consciousness, a "bare knuckle warrior poetics." Cameron Conaway, a former MMA fighter, offersMalaria, Poemsboth as a response to Ginsberg's call and as a new call to contemporary poetry.

    eISBN: 978-1-60917-431-6
    Subjects: Language & Literature, Sociology

Table of Contents

  1. Front Matter
    (pp. i-viii)
  2. Table of Contents
    (pp. ix-x)
  3. FOREWORD
    (pp. xi-xiv)
    LEAH KAMINSKY

    “Bad air” is the English translation of the Italian neologismmalaria. One bite from the femaleAnophelesmosquito and the very breath of life is threatened. In the Western world, malaria is a word we speak of perhaps most frequently when planning our summer vacations to exotic destinations. We are privy to medication that prevents infection, keeping us safe from “the world’s perfect killer.” This is not so for people in other parts of the world. Sir Gustav Nossal, a formidable researcher in the field, points out: “it is unconscionable … for people to still be dying from diseases that...

  4. THAT’S CEREBRAL
    (pp. 1-2)
  5. SILENCE, ANOPHELES
    (pp. 3-9)
  6. STILL BORN
    (pp. 10-11)
  7. STORE (V.)
    (pp. 12-13)

    There is a store that stands out because it is nearly three years old and because it is made of treated lumber not thatch and because its logo is a photo of a man white as lightning using two hands to choke a human-sized mosquito. The store sells insecticide-treated nets, but it has never sold any because each net costs as much as two years of work, and although the store shows no profit, it stays open and clean and luminescent. A local diplomat comes once a month, whenever fits his schedule, to cut the grass around the store with...

  8. GAME I
    (pp. 14-15)
  9. COUNTERFEIT
    (pp. 16-18)
  10. OKAPI
    (pp. 19-21)
  11. WRAPPED UP, IN
    (pp. 22-23)
  12. WHAT THE SHOULDER KNOWS
    (pp. 24-25)
  13. DIE NEVER ALWAYS
    (pp. 26-30)
  14. MIRROR
    (pp. 31-33)
  15. VACCINE
    (pp. 34-35)

    The white door has a sensor on the floor that gauges the distance of my foot and opens, as they tell me, accordingly, and the door shuts airtight with a hiss, which it also has a sensor for, and just before this they told me about how vaccine comes from the late 18th century and comes from the Latinvaccinus, fromvaccaor cow, because of the use of the cowpox virus against smallpox, and then they told me how malaria is a contraction of the Italianmalaandaria, which means bad air, because people once believed it was...

  16. LENS
    (pp. 36-37)
  17. IN SEASON
    (pp. 38-42)
  18. OFFER
    (pp. 43-45)
  19. I WANT TO GO
    (pp. 46-47)
  20. DENSITY SLANT
    (pp. 48-51)
  21. GAME II
    (pp. 52-53)
  22. LANDSCAPE
    (pp. 54-56)

    If I could tell you all the names, it wouldn’t be the same, so I’ll say my feet sink slightly into the soft soil but not enough that it comes up over my toenails. A blood red ant just carried a twig that must have been three times its own bodyweight on top of and over my foot, and I couldn’t move because of the power of it all. My ankles itched this morning, and now they are a bit swollen I guess from bites during the night, and my pants are rolled to below the knee, which is the...

  23. MISC. MATTERS
    (pp. 57-60)

    “Plasmodium is a tiny, single-celled parasite that infects cells.” There are over 120 species of the parasite genus Plasmodium. These five infect humans:

    1.Plasmodium falciparum: causes the most serious disease; this is the killer.

    2.Plasmodium vivax: the most common but infections rarely fatal.

    3.Plasmodium ovale: restricted to West Africa; causes mild illness.

    4.Plasmodium malariae: isolated and scattered over globe, severe fever, rarely fatal.

    5.Plasmodium knowlesi: recently discovered in Southeast Asia, potentially fatal. (Wellcome Collection, “The Malaria Parasite at a Glance” and A. Kantele and S. Jokiranta, Plasmodium knowlesi—the fifth species causing human malaria)

    “The femaleAnophelesmosquito, hungry for...

  24. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    (pp. 61-62)
  25. Back Matter
    (pp. 63-63)