Theodore Christou

Poetic Ekphonesis: Verse, Narrative, Self-study, and Therapeusis Theodore Christou

The following manuscript blurs distinction between academic research, poetry, fiction, and self-study. Poetic expression is seen as an anchor for self-study, and its purposes are framed as therapeutic. This work is a model for the exploration of themes that are particular, personal, and often subconscious, which the poet codes in the context of poetic expression. Throughout the text, the critical and reflective components of the self-study are elaborated through the voice of the omnipresent narrator. The use of critical narration that complicates the context of discussion is a means of implicating the reader in the tensions of autoethnographic analysis, wherein clarity of explanation is repeatedly submitted to the scrutiny of hermeneutic analysis. The struggle with onset of and recovery from an eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, represents the subject matter of this manuscript. Anorexia is depicted as a force that divides the individual, fragmenting him or her unnaturally and violently. The creative force of poetry and, foremost, the unbounded potential of love, are framed as vital to healing and self-understanding.