Rendering

Abstract

The idea for my SIP began with a fish market in the Chinatown section of Chicago and a book of Sharon Olds's poetry. I found a shared aesthetic in Olds's poem about caring for her dying father's naked body and a jar full of dried seahorses with missing eyes; both images are simultaneously repulsive and compelling. Before reading her poetry I had been looking for a way to use my interest in traditionally unappealing subjects and images, such as a peeling sunburn or my grandmother's homemade headcheese. Olds uses imagery that examines the familiar and even the vulgar with an objective, finely-tuned eye that makes them seem compelling and new. I wanted my SIP to be a collection of poems that was similarly focused-and slightly unnerving.