Award-winning writer, teacher
and scholar

Monthly Archives: September 2017

Branding Bond

Laura Madeline Wiseman’s brave new book, Branding Girls, offers us a mercurial and unflinching exploration of the commodification of the body, reduced to a vessel of projections, to a commercial brand, naturally, but also wearing the brand, the wound of the animal possessed. And with possession comes the animation, the childlike doll-play, the habitation by…
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Branding Dubrow

Brand: as in a mark. Branded: as in burned on an animal, a criminal, someone enslaved. Branding: as in a trademarking, a commodification. In Laura Madeline Wiseman’s terrifying Branding Girls , the poet demonstrates that our femininity is defined by advertising, name brands, and material desires. From the figure of the Japanese “elevator girls,” we…
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Ghost Ayers

Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Ghost Girl chapbook collection is not for the faint of heart. These are alert, visceral works of imagination and true grit. Intelligent and sophisticated, Wiseman becomes the clear-eyed oracle for our contemporary culture. Ghost Girl is as much a metaphor for being present in our lives as it is a haunting presence…
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Imaginary Raz

In her brilliant My Imaginary, sass and success, drag and heft come packaged in words that sway and tease, lift and laugh for our pleasure and sometimes pain. Who’s in charge here? we might wonder but the answer is always Laura Madeline Wiseman in her remarkable chapbook. Perfect. – Hilda Raz
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