“SONG OF OUR BODYLANDS”: BORZUTZKY’S ROTTEN CARCASS ECONOMY, TRAUMATIC COMMUNAL LANDSCAPES, AND THE DIASPORIC TESTIMONY OF “IN THE MURMURS OF THE ROTTEN CARCASS ECONOMY” AND “THE PERFORMANCE OF BECOMING HUMAN”

Abstract

Communal sound and melody are of unique significance within the poetic works of the Chilean-American poet Daniel Borzutzky, as can be seen throughevident examples within his full-length poetry collections In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economyandthe National Book Award-winningThe Performance of Becoming Human. These works demonstrate a canonical relationship through Borzutzky’s ongoing dedication to describing the experiences of marginalized bodies in the ever-present construction of the “rotten carcass economy,” a system within which physical and economic violence is enacted by “authoritative bodies” onto other bodies, thus producing a trauma which serves as capital and further perpetuates an ongoing circulationand staging of violence. Thisviolence is further described through the witness of communal melody by Borzutzky’s speaker within In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy, as can be seen most prominently within the poem “Writing.” This poem establishes the speaker’s purpose within the collection through the melodic engagement of the speaker by a chorus of “murmuring ghosts” and bodies. This engagement evolves as one continues through The Performance of Becoming Human, as Borzutzky demonstrates a consciousness and incorporation of his readerswithin the action of such poems as “Dream Song #17,” “The Broken Testimony,” and “In the Blazing Cities of Your Rotten Carcass Mouth.”It can befurther concluded from these examplesthat Borzutzky seeks not only to engage readers in an empathetic experience with the trauma felt by bodies, but also encourage an audience to confront systems of violence through writing, continued civic discourse,and grassroots-level activism.Keywords: communal melody, murmuring, bodies, authoritative bodies, rotten carcass economy, physical violence, economic violence, trauma,translation,empathetic engagement, immersion, testimony, wound culture, border culture, civic discourse, sociopolitical activism.