Extratransmission

Author: Andrea Abi-Karam

Publisher: Kelsey Street Press (2019)

Extratransmission by Andrea Abi-Karam was selected by judge Bhanu Kapil as Winner of the 2017 Kelsey Street Press FIRSTS! Contest. Extratransmission is a poetic critique of nationalism, patriarchy & gender embedded in an explosive & unapologetic trauma narrative. It begins with an exhaustive, loud, & unapologetic section on killing bros, the perpetrators of patriarchy, before entering a narrative of how traumatic brain injury occurs to bodies in modern warfare. The text labors over how memory constructs our identity, our constant experience, and how that can be destroyed in one of many empty military moments. The language pushes beyond conventional lyric and incorporates angry letters, prose pieces, a love poem, & intimate conversation while maintaining both an intense energy and constant movement. In resistance to how patriarchy and U.S. militarism produce the hypergendered subject, the text generates a genderqueer cyborg whose language comes together to form Extratransmission, a book that explicates how patriarchy, capitalism, & nationalism form the high rising global city that will tear your heart out.