A Map Predetermined and Chance

“Identified, pressed, touched ‘repeatedly or restlessly,’ pleasured, hankered after, pointed at with the finger. Laura Wetherington means everything, all of everything. ‘The map is not the territory,’ said Alfred Korzybski. Perhaps Wetherington’s map is the territory. ‘All I want is universe,’ she winks."—C.S. Giscombe, National Poetry Series judge

From “You Slip Through My Fingers”:

This is a verb: your fingers.
This is a noun: my
desire. They make
a sentence: you finger
my desire.

Strong, cathartic language on subjects ranging as wide as orgasm as deep as music, as timely as place, these debut poems speak clearly to history both personal and liberatory.

Laura Wetherington , a Virginia native, teaches creative writing at Eastern Michigan University. She co-founded and co-edits Textsound, an online journal of experimental poetry and sound.