The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Clare Louise Harmon's "The Thingbody"

Memory recollection: Pressured rigid pounding sound from
violin pound sound as if the bow might break as if the strings
might snap snap. In the face snap make brutal lacerations
brought on by brutal pressure no more they would say no more
no more the strings would snap scream no more this far no
farther they’d say. The sound powerful expansive taking time
space time taking space time tangible. Taking the room the air
suffocating taking the listener listless feckless restless listener
reposed on sinking sofa beside silks fine silks fine silks framed
frozen for posterity.

This selection comes from Clare Louise Harmon’s book The Thingbody, available now from Instar Books. Purchase your copy here!

Clare Louise Harmon is a musician and poet. She is the author of The Thingbody (Instar Books, 2015) and If Wishes Were Horses the Poor Would Ride (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals including Sixth Finch, PANK, Tammy, Lockjaw, and The Feminist Wire. An advocate for rape survivors and persons in recovery from eating disorders, she regularly volunteers for The Emily Program as a guest speaker and blogger.

She currently teaches violin, viola, and piano at the Louisiana Academy of the Performing Arts and lives in New Orleans with her rescue dog, Tink.

Jennifer Hanks is the author of the forthcoming chapbooks Prophet Fever (Hyacinth Girl Press) and The Unsteady Planet(Instar Books), a collaboration with illustrator Julie Herndon. Her work has appeared in Arcadia, Ghost Ocean Magazine, Muzzle, Menacing Hedge, PANK, and other journals. She writes an ongoing column, Disorder Reigns, for Arcadia‘s online sundries blog. She is an MFA candidate at the University of New Orleans.