Light

Light, in the poem "Let Light Shine Out of Darkness," refers to the possibility of the body's movement in a world congested with images of mutilation. At the same time, light also signifies the speaker's newfound awareness of his body's self-alienation. Synthesizing these two meanings opens up a third connotation for light: the illuminating light of awareness, coupled with the lightness of mobility, leads to the light of hopefulness for a better future.

The Gag

The gag makes its first appearance early, in the titular poem "The Performance of Becoming Human." The gag signifies the silencing of minority and otherwise vulnerable bodies by local manifestations of state power: "He wants to know what color the gag was, what it was made / of, how many mouths had licked it. Hundreds, thousands, / tens of thousands?" (14). Later, state power is figured more in the abstract, morphing into an abstract...