Literary Nonfiction. Art. "Once you really see a thing...it's hard to unsee," Lia Purpura cautions in an essay that asks us to pay attention to a world abundant with objects. While others may wish to possess these things, consume them, or else throw them away, Purpura chooses to name them, give them history and weight. A tin of mints. A tag on the ear of a cow. A bottle of milk. At the center of SCREAM is Edvard Munch's iconic painting, now reproduced on T-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, inflatable dolls, so that the shrieking image loses its rage, becoming nothing more than "mild laughter." But through the lyricism of language, Purpura shows us how the commodified may be returned to lives and landscapes of their own. This chapbook was designed by James Dissette and includes original illustrations by Stuart Cawley.
Lia Purpura is the author of four collections of poetry, including It Shouldn't Have Been Beautiful (Penguin/Viking, 2015), King Baby (Alice James Books, 2008), Stone Sky Lifting (Ohio State University Press, 2000), and The Brighter the Veil (Orchises Press, 1996). In addition, she has authored three collections of essays: Rough Likeness (Sarabande Press, 2011), On Looking (Sarabande Press, 2006), and Increase (University of Georgia, 2000). A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (for On Looking), she has also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, a Fulbright Foundation Fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, and multiple residencies and fellowships at the MacDowell Colony. Purpura is Writer in Residence at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in Baltimore, MD and teaches at the Rainier Writing Workshop in Tacoma, WA.