How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic: A Book-length PoemPoetry. A book-length narrative poem, or a novella-in-verse if you prefer, HOW TO BUILD THE GHOST IN YOUR ATTIC is a novel-poem with a literary sci-fi bent, a shadow-text to Oedipus written in a style that is up-to-the-minute. With wit, dynamism, and cutting senses of urgency and humor, Iowa Prize winner Peter Jay Shippy tells the tale of Isaac Makepeace Watt, a melancholy man living in a Thebes that is much like contemporary America. The House of Cadmus still rules (and will fall), but they only appear in the poem as media white noise. Isaac's concerns are personal, his father's illness and his own moral decrepitude. There are talking monkeys, plagues, oracles, and nano-robots-you know, the usual agoramania. |
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Alphaville argot Attic a book-length believe Betty Speck bird blue Boy shakes head brain Build the Ghost burn candy cards cartoon chest cotton candy Creon Delphi door Dwarf cows Eteoclês eyes face Fairfield father favorite Forensic science gorilla Gramps hair hear Heckett Iocasté Iowa Poetry Prize Isaac Makepeace Watt Isaac Watt Ismenê Ithaca lapped the pond live looks memories mob forgets moles moon mountain gorilla moved name you Isaac never night nose Oedipus Pablo D'Antoni Patchen Industries Hospital Peter Jay Shippy Pierre pink play plovers Pok's police polyglot reality Pythia robot roof Rose Metal Press satyr say throw cares Selene Shippy's shit shot sings smell Sphinx stained star-flitter teeth Teiresias Theban Thebes there's thing Tragedy tree TWEET JESUS voice wall watch What's woman words Yazoo Zeus