What Becomes of a Body
What Becomes of a Body intersects genres and generations, tells the story of how silence is learned and the ways in which it affects the trajectory of one woman’s life. It chronicles the strength and resilience of a writer who seeks to define trauma not only as a series of events to be overcome but as a cycle, both physical and mental, that manifestly alters the DNA of every survivor.
What Becomes of a Body is a history and a map—lessons on persevering, on finding one’s way. Its lyric narrative, a guide, instructions for how to gather and hold onto courage, honesty, and creativity, to find one’s voice even when too much of a life has been lived in silence.
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“There are names for things—hip-knob, killing jar, qualia, misophonia, Exuviae, tumor necrosis factor—and the poet-artist Kristina Moriconi knows them, wields them, layers them into a lyric narrative that is devastatingly body-centered. A throb. A splintering. A thrombotic catastrophe. A smile constrained by stitches. To read What Becomes of a Body is to be endangered and remade. It is to uphold the beauty of the kind of art that only hurt can make.”
“What Becomes of a Body delivers a raw, visceral exploration of tragedy that pierces a young woman’s life. A master of lyrical precision, Moriconi reconstructs the cruel shards and fragments of grief revealing that even amidst harrowing circumstances, love and art endure.”
“In this exquisite collection, Kristina Moriconi describes what it means to inhabit a body transformed by trauma and grief. In language influenced by her perspective as an artist, Moriconi invites us to see “[m]y body, a tapestry. My skin fabric, hand-spun.” The narrative fractures and stitches itself back together, allows silence, itself, to be a powerful voice. Kristina distills pure beauty from pain, asks us to imagine “a language shaped/by revelation/by sharp angles of light.” I’ve never read anything quite like this gem of a book, and it will resonate with me for a very long time.”
Reviews & Interviews
Identity Theory Interview With Kristina Moriconi, author of What Becomes of a Body
By Chelsey Clammer. Kristina Moriconi’s What Becomes of a Body is a lyrical and fragmented exploration of how we recover after a serious physical trauma—hers specifically is about a car accident that took years to recover from and that still, in fragmented ways, can haunt her at times.