Christine Kitano – Stories About the Body (July 2021)

In the visual arts, human representations communicate emotion through motion—whether in an active stance or a passive pose, the way a person holds their body tells the viewer how to feel. What does this mean for us as writers? And given the fact that the human body is viewed through a myriad of social constructions, and that these constructions are always indicative of systems of power and privilege, what is at stake when we describe a body as it moves through a story or poem?