Frances Justine Post Discusses "Self Portrait in the Body of a Whale" on PSA's "In Their Own Words"

 

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

BEAST author Frances Justine Post tells the Poetry Society of America the backstory behind “Self Portrait in the Body of a Whale.”

We walked down the beach, but didn’t see anything remotely whale-like until we came upon this sort of carpet of flesh. It was a whale carpet. The body was so broken down that all that was left was this huge, flat mass of skin, covering bones, half on the beach and half in the water. It was not as disgusting as it sounds and was, in fact, kind of beautiful. It was bleached white by the sun with darker stripes in a wave-like pattern.” 

Read the full article and poem on PSA’s site.

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