Cyborg Detective

by Jillian Weise

Cyborg Detective delivers a reckoning to the ableism of the Western Canon. In her latest poetry collection, Jillian Weise investigates and challenges the ways that nondisabled writers represent disability in their work. From an acerbic letter calling out William Carlos Williams’s medical conviction that “poetry heals” to a reverse-perspective biohack of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” to a stark chronicle of violence against “disabled women” in international headlines, no metaphor for “blind moon” or “deaf skies” goes unquestioned. Part invective, part love poem, Cyborg Detective holds a magnifying glass to the fetishization and marginalization of disabled people, in particular women, while claiming space and pride for the people who already use technology and cybernetic implants to survive.

Genres: Poetry, Disability, Nonfiction, Read For School, Disability Studies, Literary Fiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2019

About the author

The Cyborg Jillian Weise (Cy/Cy's/Cyself, also She/Hers) is a poet, video artist and activist. Recent essays include Common Cyborg and The Dawn of the Tryborg. Cy started Borg 4 Borg Productions and directed the film A KIM DEAL PARTY ft. Eileen Myles, Patricia Lockwood, Alice Wong and more. From 2016-2020, Weise performed the fictional character of Tipsy Tullivan across social.

Reviews

[Kelsey Landhuis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful collection that challenges the representations of disability by nondisabled writers and raises questions about whose perspectives are heard and prioritized in fiction and elsewhere. Heavy at times but also sharp, funny, and clever. Weise also provides notes with additional context for some of the included poems, which is extremely helpful for readers who might not be familiar with some of the referenced works.

Content note: Ableism, sexual assault/rape, medical trauma

[Amie Whittemore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating collection that calls out ableism through direct, incisive critique. Weise's work is sharp, smart, and provocative. A very worthwhile read.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-your-face, wickedly funny collection. I learned much reading these poems.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a potent collection.

[Paul Scott]

JUDGING FROM BLURBS on books about the lives and experiences of the disabled, what the ordinarily-abled reader is hoping to find is something brave, inspirational, moving, and so on. Jillian Weise ain't having it. If you're looking for swelling orchestra uplift, keep looking.

Here's what we'll do.We'll rope you
to the podium and ask
What do you have? What is it?
If you refuse to answer then we call
your doctor. Then we get to say
You're an inspiration.

Weise is a cyborg by virtue of having a sophisticated, programmable prosthetic leg (its cost equal, she notes, to that of a BMW convertible) and a detective by virtue of her capacity to zero in on anything that smacks of presumption, condescension, or just plain bullshit in what is written about disabilities by writers both canonical and long gone (W. C. Williams, Raymond Carver) and still living (no, I'm not going to tell you, buy the book already!).

Smart, funny, enlightening, but if you are ordinarily-abled, it will probably make you cringe a few times, too, and that may be just as worthwhile as our being inspired. E.g., from "Imaginary Interview":

Q. Explain, if you will, how you came to wear a prosthetic, and why this leg differs from others.
A: Of course. The event. Everyone is always interested in the event. It is like a birthday party we all get to attend.

I wonder if Weise knows Mike Ervin? That is a conversation I would like to eavesdrop on.

Also--"Rahab" is one of the best Biblically-inspired contemporary poems I have ever come across.

And--I was kinda-sorta hoping we would get a few more poems about Big Logos (see Weise's The Book of Goodbyes). Maybe he's out of the picture?

[Khadijah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fierce, funny, tender, layered—a brilliant intertwining of persona and the personal, both world-encompassing and interior. This book goes a long way toward creating a more accurate notion of what poetry can do in the world. Ignoring or erasing the lives and work and experiences of folks with disabilities, purposefully and intentionally as has been the prevailing social norm, gets called out raucously and beautifully in Cyborg Detective. Do the world and yourself a favor: read and share this book.

PS—Make sure you read the notes section too!

[Cade Leebron · Rating 5 out of 5]

An atomic anti-ableist bomb of a book.

[Harmony Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

When one of her poems moves me, goodness does it ever! As a disabled woman (but not an amputee), so many of these poems resonated.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sharp collection that challenges the horribly ableist society we live in. There are a lot of references made in these poems that fill in some of the details of what’s happening. That said, other poems might still have you looking up certain figures and ideas to fully grasp what Weise is trying to get at. Cy is tired of societal bullshit and how certain able-bodied and able-minded writers have approached disability (past and present).

There were two poems I particularly liked, but in general, I think this collection was meant to be approached as a whole rather than specific ones. It will really give you a sense of how frequently disabled people’s lived experiences are erased and misrepresented.

Some favorites: “Variation on the Disabled Poet Emily Dickinson’s #745” and “Cathedral by Raymond Carver”

Read for the Sealey Challenge.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
At first I didn't understand the title nor what the first couple poems truly meant until I read the blurb. That can also be said for ableism and being handicapped. Until you experience it yourself you won't ever truly understand. I didn't even think about this being a topic for poetry (though there is something out there for everything), and that in itself is an issue. Society tends to gloss over or just ignore people who have lifelong disabilities and it should be talked about more. Going forward I hope to educate myself more and put myself in such a position so I can at least try to understand. I am not physically disabled myself but I hope that people like Weise provide a space for those who are disabled to be themselves and know that their experiences and thoughts are shared.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about disability, desire, and the body as cyborg.

from What You Need to Know: "You need to know the location / of your keys in case of an emergency. / You need to know Hebrew // and then teach me."

from Confession: "Each night the trains come. / On the night in question / the conductor laid on / the horn. I could not take it / anymore."

from Anticipatory Action: "If cyborg enunciations are the future / avant-garde, then what are real cyborgs? / Do we have to be avant or can we // be ourselves? Sometimes you all / come in and need us to assert / our powerlessness."

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cyborg Detective by Jillian Weise (who wrote one of my favorite essays in Disability Visibility) was a collection that I very much enjoyed reading even if it went over my head in more ways than one. A major theme of the collection is confronting and critiquing the use of disability as plot device in the wider poetry canon, and while I didn’t often know the poems or poets Weise was referencing I found cy’s commentary sharp and insightful.⁣

[Scooter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the collections that I had to pick up for my poetry class. This is probably the most amount of fun I have ever had reading any type of reading for class. Weise is a wonderful poet that's able to write with such biting humor and raw emotion that I hope to convey in my own writings someday.

[Tiffany T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful Prose

Witty, introspective, take no prisoners kind of poetry. Sharp and savvy. I enjoyed it immensely. Definitely worth reading. Shows the reader a perspective worth paying attention to.

[Adriana D · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for an English class I’m taking so not something I usually read. Definitely struggled to understand the majority of these poems.

[jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ! I feel as though I learnt much about disabled living, specifically with prosthetics

[Jessica Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, you want me to run
You want me to gunless run legless across a field
Are you trying to get me killed

[Phoenix Ocean · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this felt like being repeatedly beat over the head with a blunt object.

[Sarah Alcaide-Escue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gut-punchy and unapologetic.

[Loretta]

Razor sharp, witty take down of the ubiquitous, casual ableism writers and poets lean on in their work. In Cathedral by Raymond Carver, Weise reimagines the plutonic relationship between the wife in the story and her blind “friend” as sexual and passionate. In Phantom Limb, she calls out a litany if poets who explain a phantom limb as a metaphor, thus erasing the lived experience of people with disabilities. In the last stanza she writes:

Does anyone actually have a phantom limb?
The rest of you: draw your blood elsewhere.

Indeed. Weise is a cyborg detective, sniffing out the ableism that permeates art and language and demanding visibility, justice, and dignity for all the beautiful, sensual, angry, powerful cyborgs of the world.

[Joshua Dancer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not literary enough get most of the references here, but I love Weise's style.