Poems from The Animal Is Chemical by Hadara Bar-Nadav

A selection of poems from The Animal Is Chemical by Hadara Bar-Nadav

Author’s note: The poems published in the  Los Angeles Review are from my manuscript-in-progress The Animal Is Chemical. The central metaphor of this book is pharmakon, that which has the power to harm and heal. The clinical, distant language I encountered as a former medical editor collides with familial wounds from the Holocaust in poems that excavate intergenerational trauma. I juxtapose poems about modern medical practices, Nazi medical experiments, and family narratives to challenge assumptions about healing our bodies, our families, and our shared histories. Sixty of my family members were killed in the Holocaust, and it is through this lens that I write and engage with political leaders who institute registries, enforce mass deportations, and cage children in detention centers. The global refugee crisis and an alarming rise in racism and anti-Semitism recall for me narratives of my own family members forced to complete registries before their deportation to concentration camps. As a writer, I ask myself: What can art say and do in response to crises of the past and present? Can poetry help us heal?

Several poems in The Animal Is Chemical demonstrate the link between anti-Semitism, genocide, and science. Other poems consider the failure of modern medicine to heal and comfort us. I have also included erasure poems based on pharmaceutical package inserts. Package inserts contain life-saving information but are coded in medical jargon. Through the erasure form, I rewrite package inserts and create poems—human language in a human tongue. I hope these poems inform and empower people as they seek an authentic language of care. Poetry is an antidote for isolation and promotes empathy, understanding, and healing, which is essential in these complex and challenging times.

Descend  

Pain scales, scalds, radiates along
the crumbling spire of the self

A network of needles and nerves—
90,000 miles on fire

In one scale faces frown or weep,
in another words descend

Pain descends through your face

Point to the face that looks
like pain—your flat-lined mouth  

X marks the spot on the outline
of a body—face rubbed out

78 words describe pain, every word
selected for you

………..searing, wrenching, wretched, shooting,
………..cutting, suffocating, terrifying, vicious  

Point to your pain and a woman
writes it down

Say it clearly (with scalding hands)

………..I can feel each one of my nerve endings,
………..says your dead father

………..I can no longer hold up my own torso,
………..you say to the wall

Ragged lace of each breath
(your conversation crawls)

There are questions one must ask
pain (inside your OxyContin cloud)

Can you stand? Sit?
Have normal sexual relations?

Complete household tasks?

How long is each day, how long
each lashing hour?

How red your pain, how blue?

Your pain goal on a scale of one
centimeter to oblivion?

Earn a score of one for no crying,
higher scores for

………..grimace, groaning, moaning,
………..screaming (high-pitched/not)

Map the distance between

………..gnawing and crushing,
………..punishing and killing

Measure it in breaths
(whir, whir, whir, whir)

Finally, no words contain you

[Carry an identification card]

—from the Dexamethasone drug information from Medline Plus

Carry an identification card that indicates

………..your body, ………..your land,
………..certain forms of ………..blood.


COVID,
cancer, colitis,

………..confusion.

  ………..Large doses
……of loss.

If you

………..miss
      miss
miss ………..your
………..mind,

if you
………..need to
………..………..protect
………..the lace
………..of your
………..heart,

if the ………..victim has collapsed,

send a report to the ……….. Administration
of combat.
………..Write down
………..signs of
………..trouble,

the matter you cough up,

………..tartrazine,
………..gray or green,
………..redness

bruising
            your throat. 

I ……….. will

………..hear
………..………..you

you ………..you

   ………..………..          you.         



Tell
………..………..me
………..your
………..history of
………..war. 

Jewish Lightning

I strike down, strike hard, vaporize light. I raise my hands and sever the sky. Scald you on the exhale between your startled eyes.

I burn down the bar, collect insurance money, destroy my dying business in a dying town. My bar is called The Phoenix.  The Phoenix will not rise.

I die. I burn down. 

I fool everyone. My lightning is covert. It burns without burning, without anyone seeing, without anyone raining down gallons of gasoline and ripping the match. I am invisible. Spectacle free. I am free to burn you down. Scent of singe and chlorine. Crackling.

I cheat, cheat, cheat. My pockets full of cash. I cheat you for your money. Your money is my money.  My money makes me Jewish. I am made of lightning and cash. Tricky, tricky, trick. I steal it all from you. I Jew you.

This gold star means I’m a thief, witch, godless, heading straight for hell, hebe, kike, yid, dirty pig, be careful my grease could rub off. Your gaze rubs off, tries to rub me out of the picture. 

My teeth a goldmine, more gold than bone. My mouth flame, tongue flickering. Fire ruptures, rushes my core—my furnace heart and torso lined in gold. Brighter than light at the edge of erasure. My family died by fire, my family in flames roaring inside the furnace. Watch them fly from my hands.

[Come, it is almost time]

—From the Ondansetron (Zofran) package information from Medline Plus and Prescriber’s Digital Reference

Come,
……….. it is almost time
……….. ……….. to end.


Nausea, vomiting,
chemotherapy, radiotherapy.


This treatment ……….. is

……….. a killer.


Eyes, lips, tongue, throat, hands, feet, ankles, legs
rapidly disintegrating.

……….. Your
……….. blue
……….. ache.


There is little information
……….. shown on the label
……….. of
……….. your
……….. yellow ……….. face,
……….. ……….. ………..forgotten
……….. ……….. ………..and plain.

……….. You
……….. are not
……….. special
……….. and

last
……….. for a short time. 

An hour
live[d]

gently
on
this page.

A National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Hadara Bar-Nadav is the author of The New Nudity (Saturnalia Books, 2017); Lullaby (with Exit Sign), awarded the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize (Saturnalia Books, 2013); The Frame Called Ruin, Runner Up for the Green Rose Prize (New Issues, 2012); and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight, awarded the Margie Book Prize (Margie/Intuit House, 2007).  Her chapbook Fountain and Furnace (Tupelo Press, 2015) was awarded the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize.  She is currently a Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.