Image Image Image Image Image
Scroll to Top

To Top

Featured Projects

Embedding the Cancer PortEmbedding the Cancer PortEmbedding the Cancer PortEmbedding the Cancer PortEmbedding the Cancer Port

On 01, May 2017 | In | By Matthew

Embedding the Cancer Port

This graduate project was an exploration of semiotic and semantic analysis. It’s based off the poem “Embedding the Cancer Port” by Robert King.

See larger images in PDF.

Here is the original poem:

It’s called a port, a harbor, haven, home,
a city on the coast of my chest opened
for a passage into my heart—which we say
is where emotions live—and it’s embedded,
slipped into a shallow nest of flesh, a bump,
a lump under the skin on the right so
the narrow street can reach the marketplace
of the aorta, receptive to any
incoming ship, needle, boat, barge, unloading
its spices, crates of dates, barrels of poisons,
Etoposide phosphate, amethyst, amaranth,
Cisplatin, amphorae of wine and olives.
I carry it secretly under my skin
because it is easier. I carry
everything under my skin, so lightly
I barely notice, watching from the ramparts
the dangerous rocky anchorage below
where goods and evils, bundled together
and tied, arrive, waiting to be unloaded
and poured out into a welcoming country.