Scott Glassman and “jewel case: H5N1”
Scott Glassman is a poet and psychologist whose poetry publications include the chapbook Exertions and Quaternity, a full-length collaboration with Sheila E. Murphy. His poems have appeared in journals including Iowa Review, jubilat, the tiny, and Sentence, and his work was included in Best New Poets 2007.
Issue 27 preserves “jewel case: H5N1,” a poem written through the vocabulary of avian influenza, migration, anatomy, medicine, logistics, image culture, and intimacy. Its clipped phrases and technical fragments move between projected infection routes, bird migration, hospital language, coffins, cargo holds, digital images, national identity, and declarations of love and healing.
jewel case: H5N1
femur | knee joint | scheme of gutride & phallic daze
this year, it will. spring migration. encounter. Asia to Alaska
in Alaska and elsewhere. projected. five to six times. as many birds
worry. south this fall
(i was courting you. inter-spacially
your answer)
oftentimes the cavewater. sublets. parishes (glow into us)
jolie’s format. riverboat | taxonomy. suit of. i love you in sickness. frivolous. as its
proportions
(coffins) may not have a diagnosis
in the cargohold. dreamflood. 5th watertight. compartment. screams for rivets & angles
Oedipus jpeg-glut. -ular. -uvial. your america. is america. is amer-ican-izing
clothes-graphs
fully hierarchical hegemonies. describe yourself (weight. height. color)
running length (30 years. 19 days. 5 hours)
sepia-tones & ayub ogada. honeysuckle. quarter darkness 1/5th of it. interesting to the un-
haldoled
mercy medical. rehab / mica-embossed. humanization. bluegrass equated with
i pronounce you healed
Poetry and later work
The surviving biographical record describes Glassman as the author of Exertions and coauthor of Quaternity, with publications across experimental poetry journals. The Kelly Writers House archive also records his participation in Philadelphia’s poetry community.