cts of violence, such as rape, are all-consuming narratives—“a vast face” as Cathy Eisenhower says at the beginning of distance decay. She then proceeds to take hold of the rape experience by utilizing a rare definition of “redact”—to draw up, to frame. The frames she constructs portray the rape experience broadly—beyond the individual—to include aspects of our culture and our history, and then she whittles the memories of her rape into various shapes and sizes—“candling, a public alone/pulling off the little part”. Eisenhower does not “pull a Romantic” by faking a victory over the experience of being raped. Instead, she demonstrates how one continues to move through fragmented experience—and endure: “as I sit and breathe grow mode rate as I sit and breathe keep coming back and saying that and touching gently the saying of it back”.

Praise for previous work:

Cathy Eisenhower's premonitions are rife with elliptical magic & profound intelligence "as a day is, repeatedly lifted." would with and ignites my love for poetry & makes me want to make more of it: “think (that) you speak along the tongue telling nothing."