Elephant
Stockman, Soren
A serious young man, / I had trouble saying yes / to the bright, clear days, " Soren Stockman's Elephant begins. The poems that follow move through despair, self-destruction, and disassociation to arrive, finally, at that elusive affirmation. Accompanied throughout by the imagined presence of Joseph Merrick, the 20th Century entertainer and medical patient popularly depicted as "The Elephant Man, " Stockman's speaker interrogates how storytell...