Samantha DiRosa

In Elegies from the Medical Terminology Study Card Set, I appropriate and recontextualize vintage medical terminology study cards, found in a thrift store, to re-envision our cultural relationship to the body.  The initial context of these study cards, to support training on diagnosis of the body, is subverted in the process of burning and removing text.  The words that remain coalesce, to speak sentimentally to the emotional and psychological states brought about by longing, sadness, desire, and loss.  Some poems dwell within grief, some within ecstatic passion, and yet others suggest paths to healing and wholeness.  The transformation of prosaic medical text into poetic metaphor suggests more multi-dimensionally what we contain in our bodies.