The Reinvention of the Human Hand

Paul Vermeersch's new book of poems illuminates the sometimes unexpected yet profound consequences of the collision between technology and the natural world, between the evolutionary process and the human condition. InThe Reinvention of the Human Hand, Paul Vermeersch continues his ongoing poetic exploration of what it means to be human and alive in the physical world. From the mean and humble origins of our genetic inheritance to the present-day complexities and limitations of the human form, from crude depictions painted on cave walls to pixilated images on a screen, and from the collective voices of "the hundred billion dead who came before" us, to the unspoken, private thoughts of individuals today, these poems ask us to question the various ways we see ourselves in life as well as in art, in science as well as in myth and then they ask us to look again.

PAUL VERMEERSCH's previous books of poetry are Burn, a finalist for the 2001 Gerald Lampert Award, The Fat Kid, and, Between the Walls. He was the founder of The I.V. Lounge Reading Series and editor of The I.V. Lounge Reader. His poetry has been published widely in literary journals and magazines across the country. He is the poetry editor for Insomniac Press.

I
The Painted Beasts of Lascaux
A Scorpion in Alcohol
Ode to Amoeba proteus
Bosch Landscape 2010
Hands
The Formation of the Pack
Altarpiece with False Teeth and Parkinson’s Disease
The Sadness Will Last Forever
Twenty-one Days with a Baboon Heart
Another Effect of Global Warming
Elegy for Paul Winchell
Ape
Boys Who Envy Werewolves
 
II
I Am Happy to Live in an Age of Plenty
Basic Instructions for Anaesthesia
Old Punk
Prayer to a Saint
Smoke
In the Glorious Absence of Gods
Last of the Blondes
The Threatened Swan
Ringtones
Prosthetic Leg in Storage
A Photograph of the Human Retina
 
III
Sorrow for Frogsong
In Joseph Merrick’s London
The Marriage of the Nuclei
Dogstar
Love as an Argument in Theoretical Physics
A Glass Eye Finds Its Purpose
The Reinvention of the Human Hand
He Considers the Possibility that None of This Is Real
This Is Where Your Life Begins
Three Anthropomorphic Studies
Beautiful and Swift
The Demolition of Heaven
Cloud Formation like a Map of the World
Lost Things
 
Notes
Acknowledgements