YOU ASK ME TO TALK ABOUT THE INTERIOR, BY CAROLINA EBEID
You Ask Me To Talk About The Interior, Carolina Ebeid’s debut collection of poetry, forces readers to take care with the otherwise subconscious action of observation. In examining objects, ideas, and relationships, Ebeid raises questions about authenticity: what, if anything, is the “real version” of something, and what happens when one tries to access that “real version” through words?
One of the conceptual refrains Ebeid utilizes in the book is that of punctum, which she ties to Ronald Barthes’ Camera Lucida. She explains punctum as “the object/image within a photograph that leaps out and punctures the viewer.” There are five poems in the text that follow the “Punctum/ ” titular format, and each of these poems appears in the form of a prose-poem. In an interview with The Poetry Society of America, she stated that these poems are in conversation with a NYT photo of a Palestinian man throwing a rock. Knowing this, and while putting into practice the kind of careful observation exemplified by the speakers in Ebeid’s poems, readers are tasked with the delightful process of destabilizing the idea of an image, both in visual art and literature.
Ebeid’s inquiries are as exquisitely image-rich as they are intellectually stimulating—and sometimes, she even couples these questions with answers. To the ancient anxiety regarding what literature can actually do, Ebeid responds (in “Punctum/Sawing a Woman in Half”): “Poetry contains revolutionary power.”
