Debris

Abstract

The poems in Debris (by Kathryn Karoly) consider the female self through the internalized hate manifested from outside social forces into the reconstruction of the mental self, and physical self as well, as seen in the poem, “Alterations”. The speaker in Debris inhabits our male-dominated modern world, where the influence of appearance on womanhood collides with her ancestral origins, as well as the external, natural world which she searches for acceptance of the natural body. Debris seeks strangely shaped keyholes in the door of questions on human inclinations toward dissolution and transcendence during times of love and loss. Its poems speak through white space just as much as through lyric and narrative, and often mirror longing for familial ties, for the self, and carnal desire. The desert, the female body, and a photograph of Wilma Rudolph, all become twisted to unlock something else. Internal rhyme, repetition, and recycled sounds function as a morphing key. Debris doesn’t answer, but asks, and echoes.