EKPHRASIS FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE

LIZ BOWEN

A review of Umbilical Hospital by Vi Khi Nao AP2 Books Vi Khi Nao, Umbilical Hospital 1913 Press Paperback, 84 pages, November 2017 When I was a kid, my parents took me to visit relatives in Ireland. The main thing I remember about that time is the sheep: long car rides, misty ruins, fabulous nightmare-shaped cliffs, and the sheep, everywhere, like shabby sentient clouds. I watched them always, wondering what they knew about this place where they lived and I didn’t—if it occurred to them that it was beautiful. Did they know about green, I wondered, or just hunger and danger and sex? Vi Khi Nao’s Umbilical Hospital, a poetic ekphra sis of Leslie Thornton’s video installation “Sheep Machine,” tells me I didn’t quite get the question right. Why did I want beauty for the sheep,…

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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, November/December 2018

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