Anatomic Author:Adam Dickinson We talk a lot about what we're doing to our environment, but what is our environment doing to us? Adam Dickinson decided to find out. He drew blood, collected urine, swabbed bacteria, and tested his feces to measure the precise chemical and microbial diversity of his body. To his horror, he discovered that our 'petr... more »oculture' has infiltrated our very bodies with pesticides, flame retardants, and other substances. He discovered shifting communities of microbes that reflect his dependence on the sugar, salt, and fat of the Western diet, and he discovered how we rely on nonhuman organisms to make us human, to regulate our moods, and personalities. The outside writes the inside, whether we like it or not.
Structured like the hormones some of these synthetic chemicals mimic in our bodies, this sequence of poems links the author's biographical details (diet, lifestyle, geography) with historical details (spills, poisonings, military applications) to show how permeable our bodies are to the environment. As Dickinson becomes obsessed with limiting the rampant contamination of his own biochemistry, he turns this chemical-microbial autobiography into an anxious plea for us to consider what we're doing to our world -- and to our own bodies. « less