Identifying the Pathogen

A hybrid collection blending historical research and contemporary essays to consider the nature of oppressive marriage and gender inequity. Composed as a lab notebook recording various surgeries, autopsies, and experiments, Identifying the Pathogen tells the story of a scientist on an obsessive quest to document an ailment that resists classification. The book considers the body in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, woven through with the story of Anna Morandi Manzolini—an eighteenth-century Italian anatomist and artist who struggled to support a husband suffering from depression—as well as several essays detailing accounts of a ruptured appendix, a splintered cello, and an ill-fated rock climbing excursion.

Table of Contents:
Contents i. Anna Morandi Manzolini + the influence of vision on the mind the lab the body philtrum pericardium sinus post script the lab + Wax Self-Portrait Wax Portrait of a Husband Wax Portrait of a Marriage Autopsy Report + the body cell bone mortality the body traits/the eye + The Ten Commandments of the Anatomist’s Wife Wax Portrait of a Husband Wax Portrait of a Cadaver Autopsy Report + vision travel the body microscope slide blood/leukemia respiration blood ii. Anna Morandi Manzolini + the lab the lab in the lab/ill identifying the pathogen musculoskeletal physiognomy + Wax Self-Portrait Wax Portrait of a Husband Autopsy Report + blood/heart blood genetics/the cell/reproduction/asexual landscape with fossils/diatoms/day with the lab spring/bloomings/foliage/flora scales + Wax Self-Portrait Wax Portrait of a Cadaver Wax Portrait of a Cadaver Autopsy Report + time/day: transmutations mortality open season the lab vivisection iii. Anna Morandi Manzolini + time/lab s(k)in(s) corollaries the lab time/day: transmutations + Wax Portrait of Husband as Male Anglerfish Wax Portrait of a Marriage Wax Portrait of a Cadaver + blood pestilent tether/garroted frenzy/anaerobic ferment eye/vision mind the body radar eve + Wax Portrait of a Son Wax Portrait + the lab specimen slide brain vivisection the lab the circle museum + Anna Morandi Manzolini notes & acknowledgments 132

About the Author :
Jennifer Militello is the poet laureate of New Hampshire. She is the author of the memoir Knock Wood and five collections of poetry, including, most recently, The Pact. Militello’s work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Poetry, Poetry London, The Poetry Review, and Poetry Wales. Her poem “Mansplaining” is recited by high school students across the nation each year as part of the Poetry Out Loud national arts education program. She has taught at Brown University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the Rhode Island School of Design, and is currently a faculty member in the MFA program at New England College. 

Review :
"Militello’s language…is largely an exquisite example of the modern gothic: shadowy, beset by menacing weather and violent feelings, and positively bewitching."   "Militello makes order out of chaos sentence after sounding sentence, and succeeds in helping us at least try to understand human frailties."