Bad Astrocyte

In Bad Astrocyte, Cameron Morse asks, "Am I alive / in this confection / called cancer?" The disease does more than overshadow; it changes the poet's consciousness, for "a cancer that begins/ in the brain / becomes synonymous / with the brain." Little wonder, then, that although Morse minutely chronicles his survival he composes no straightforward patient narrative. Instead, the poet delivers incremental bits of anguish, anecdote, and clinical fact that crystallize into glittery verse fragments. The audience is invited to ponder not ready-made or triumphant answers but unpunctuated phrases that fuse and collide, separated only by asterisks. The effect is as disorienting as it is dazzling