Sleight: disarticulation of the artist as a young mother

The apologia is a fragmentary document delineating some of the major concerns addressed in the novel Sleight. It traces the themes of artistic production, selfhood and the sublime back to Longinus, pausing at Schiller, Burke, Adorno, and a few others. The twelve sections alternate between discussions of poetics and issues of craft. The personal is political is poetic, yet cannot be limited to the figure of the poem. Indeed, the poetic has exploded its form as the issues of womanhood have exploded the female body. Bodies are not their own. Our books are not our own. Our words are not our selves. Sleight is a story-driven if de-centered and speculative narrative which concerns itself with artistic production. Four main characters eventually come (or are dragged) together to create a performance that, for each of them, serves a different but essentialand perhaps apocalyptic purpose. Major themes in this book are: sisterhood, motherhood, otherhood, desire, love, performance, and atrocity.