Bottle fly : poems

Abstract

The critical introduction: "Improbable Florida" : Imperialism, Surrealist Tradition, and Gay and Lesbian Identity in Rimbaud’s “Drunken Boat” and Bishop’s “The Riverman” is a close-reading of those two poems through a combined lens of queer theory and post-colonialism and globalism. It is also a meditation on the concepts of identity and identification as they relate to poetry and the selves we find therein. Rimbaud and Bishop are poets who greatly influenced the style and spirit of the poems contained in Bottle Fly. The poems in Bottle Fly are largely autobiographical and chronicle in various ways the poet’s struggles with addiction, mental illness, love, and death. The poems attempt to explore and express the mind and heart of the poet and flirt with becoming empty armor. They are very interested in approaching and turning away from the questions what am I? and what is this? They recognize that when we approach the edge of a cliff or an event and see ourselves below, having fallen, nothing has happened yet.