Overview

Making Figures in the Ward explores themes of estrangement and deeply rooted individualism through various life circumstances, from the communal tensions of ""Ranch House"" and ""Tenement"" to the profound isolation of the opening poem, ""Afternoon Anson."" Overshadowing the characters are surreal images that imbue the landscape of poems like ""Lightning and Leaves,"" ""Sleep,"" and ""Solitaire"" with symbolic and emotional content. The dream-like images of Making Figures in the Ward imply we primarily inhabit a psychological world. The effect is a contrast between tenuous interpersonal connections and intimate ties to our own mental lives.

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Reviews

In Making Figures in the Ward, George Seli explores the quiet fractures of modern life-estrangement, individualism, and the psychological terrain we often retreat into. These poems move through communal spaces like tenements and family homes, where connection feels out of reach, and into dream-like inner landscapes shaped by memory, dislocation, and surreal imagery. Seli writes with precision and restraint, giving even the strangest scenes a sense of emotional weight and clarity. ""Finales continue outside / awkward and unrehearsed. / They never end,"" he observes, calling us to open our eyes to the beautiful and tragic dramas that surround us, of which we too play a part. -Peter Vanderberg is the Editor of Ghostbird Press and the author of celestial navigation and war/torn, both from Finishing Line Press

Author Information

George Seli is an editor and adjunct associate professor of philosophy. Over the last twenty years, his poetry has appeared in a variety of journals including The Conium Review, Seems, Epicenter, Crab Creek Review, and Indefinite Space.

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