How do we confront what threatens us, as a society and as human bodies?
Emilia Phillips doesn’t claim to have the answer, but her poems in “Empty Clip,” published by University of Akron Press, wrestle with the question.
In her third full-length book, the assistant professor of creative writing turns a high-powered lens on both external and internal dangers, and how we survive them. The poems reckon with physical and emotional intimidation and abuse, with sexual violence, and with gun violence.
“All of the above,” she says.
The book’s epigraph comes from “Othello” – the words of Phillips’ namesake, Emilia. “Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,/ All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.”
That was no casual decision for the prolific writer, who is currently at work on a book of essays, including one focused on Shakespeare’s Emilia.
“My experience in the world is that it’s shameful for women to talk about violence that’s been committed against them,” she says. “That quote of Emilia’s says ‘I’m going to say what you did. I’m going to speak. I’m going to call out these behaviors.’ I wanted to embody that heroism.”
The book’s cover depicts a man and a woman almost dancing but actually colliding, at cross-purposes under a red target.
“I chose the image because a lot of the book deals with men and women and particularly toxic masculinity and violence,” says Phillips.
