The Structure of the Body

By Ken Lauter

A poetic survey from many perspectives, The Structure of the Body examines the human form, both as an anatomical and physiological system and as a metaphor for other dimensions of our lives. The book explores the bodys evolution, its vast array of organs, its role in our thinking and emotional life, and its complex and profound interface with both birth and death. These poems open a fresh and exciting vista on a familiar yet always mysterious subject.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469117935

Ken Lauter

Ken Lauter studied with Donald Hall (US Poet Laureate 2006-07) at the University of Michigan, and his work has been compared to Robert Lowell’s. Distinguished poet William Meredith has said that Ken’s poetry displays “a splendid and various gift.” His previous books are: The Other Side, Before the Light (both from BkMk Press, University of Missouri at Kansas City), The Ghosts – Notes from a Field Study, Songs from Walnut Canyon, Grand Canyon Days, Searching for Mr. Stevens, The Structure of the Body, and First Kingdoms – Poems from a Vanishing Landscape (all from Xlibris). He has also written several plays, including The Dancing Apsárás, or Captain Willard’s Blues, a prequel/sequel to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. He has received a Hopwood Award for poetry, an American Academy of Poets Prize, and a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship. He has taught literature and creative writing at four universities and also worked as a mayor’s aide, a university administrator, and a grass-roots environmental activist. Ken is married to poet and neuroscientist Dr. Judy Lauter, author of How Is Your Brain Like a Zebra? — A New Human Neurotypology and A Year of Haiku (both from Xlibris). They currently live in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Ken Lauter.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by

any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

copyright owner.

Photo credits

Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs and anatomical illustrations are from the

author’s personal collection, Wikipedia Commons/public domain pages, Images of the

Human Body (Shambhala Rabbit Editions, Boston 1999), Animals (Dover New York,

1979), or other public domain sources. Back cover photo by Judith Lauter.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PREFACE

I-THE LIFE OF THE BODY

The Life of the Body

II-BEGINNINGS

Evolution

Microbes

Confessions of a Cell

Antibodies

The Production

The Gamete Dialogues

Fetal

Pregnancy/Birth

False Pregnancy

Something I Never Did

Placenta

Discovery

III-DISSECTIONS

Imhotep and Hathor-27th Century BC

Galen-129-199/217 AD

da Vinci-1452-1519

Michelangelo-David (1501-04)

Michelangelo’s David Remembers

Vesalius-1514-1564

Descartes (1596-1650)

Van Leeuwenhoek-1632-1723

Autopsy

The Two Cultures-a Marriage

IV-PARTS

Encyclopedia Man

Bones

Teeth

Stomach

The Gastro-Intestinal Tract

Anus

Poop

Bathos

Appendix

Pancreas

Spleen

Kidney

Liver-the Melancholy Man

Heart

Lungs

Skin

Hands

Feet

Scent

Eyes

Retinal Detachment

Ear

Voice Box

Breasts

Microbes II-the Many We Are

Mouth

Neurons

Turing Game

New Father, New Odysseus

A Saintly Mind

The Mind-Body Problem

Phantom Limbs

Life Support

A Vision

The Beautiful Ones

VI-LIVING IN OUR BODIES

Father

Mother

Brother

Puberty-Pretty Woman

My (Young) Body

Conjugal Bodies

Lacunar Stroke

Beloved Body

Two Dreams

The Body in Motion-Two Pictures

The Mechanics of the Body

Progeria

Thyroid Storm

Legal Death: Respirator

Miracles

The Body in the Woods

Death’s Complaint

Mercy

Tattered Coat

VIII-THE LIFE OF THE MIND

The Life of the Mind

NOTES

for Judy

my wife, best friend, most ruthless critic

and still

the only neuroscientist in my life

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Although he didn’t live to see it in print, Thomas S. Hall was always in the back of my mind as this book’s ideal reader. A noted biologist and historian, Dr. Hall was also widely read in art and culture, and his General History of Physiology (1969), though dealing with a difficult and textually messy subject, is a model of lucid prose and scrupulous scholarship. I took only one course from him at Washington University at St. Louis, but it was unforgettable. His intellectual energy and integrity were an inspiration on many levels.

Given the beautiful complexities of biology, this book could be expanded almost infinitely, and I leave it as anyone must who looks closely into human anatomy— with a sense of humility and awe. That sense is also clearly present in Diane Ackerman’s celebrated A Natural History of the World (1991) which I have drawn on repeatedly to spark poems in this volume.

* * *

While working on her PhD at the renowned research division of the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, my wife Judy also took courses at the Washington University Medical Center and worked in the med school library. So our dinner table conversation in those days often touched on matters anatomical—and our talks on the subject during the subsequent four decades have continued to entertain and inform me.

A note of thanks is also due to my friend Jay Divine, who once gave me a copy

of Gray’s Anatomy as a Christmas present. Although superseded today by modern

imaging technology and the glorious illustrations of Frank Netter, the venerable Gray’s helped keep me honest and excited while working on these poems.

* * *

Most of the poems here were written in the 1970s while I was a grad student in 19th Century British Literature at Washington University at St. Louis, but they have been heavily revised subsequently. Several new ones have also been added in recent