Taking as her guide the structure of the contemporary pop psychology how-to book, with its neatly numbered and ordered rules regarding how to change and improve our lives, and also flirting with a concept found in serial poems such as Jack Spicer’s “Psychoanalysis: An Elegy,” Dina Del Bucchia fashions incredibly witty and punchy guides for exploring our most awkward emotions.
The question becomes how to get a grip on these emotions and “self- actualize” in an age when the height of illusory autonomy is achieved by maximum contagion, by “going viral,” and through intensely obsessive identification with celebrities – spectacular representations of living human beings who, as Guy Debord suggests, “exist to act out various styles of living and viewing society unfettered, free to express themselves globally” through the act of dramatizing by-products of our labour, emphasizing power and vacations, decision and consumption.
With the advent of reality show worship, our sense of emotional control and superiority is inextricably linked with enjoying an emotional arena full of “real people” that combines explosive “blowouts” with grave mockeries of our electoral process. This phenomenon was evident in the case of the now-deceased Nyac, one of eight sea otters brought to the Vancouver Aquarium following the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill that devastated Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. Nyac skyrocketed to celebrity status when millions watched a YouTube video posted in 2007 that caught her holding hands with Milo (another otter).
In poems about this exciting celebrity hookup, by turns touching and ironic, Del Bucchia takes on our “society of the spectacle,” prompting us to meditate upon the media viewing frustum through which we channel so many of our emotions and thereby construct our sense of reality, when otters are looking out for one another in a way we often don’t.
Short-listed 2014 ReLit Awards, poetry category
“A poetic piss-take on the self-help genre.”
– Malvern Books Reviews
Dina Del Bucchia is the author of the short-story collection Don’t Tell Me What to Do and of three collections of poetry: Coping with Emotions and Otters, Blind Items, and Rom Com, the latter written with Daniel Zomparelli. She is an editor of Poetry Is Dead magazine, the artistic director of the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series, and a co-host of the podcast Can’t Lit with Jen Sookfong Lee.
…Liquidities and Del Bucchia’s Coping with Emotions and Otters in the Poetry category. See the “long …
…Dina Del Bucchia’s 2013 collection of poetry, Coping with Emotions and Otters , calling it “a delightful and poignant satire of …
…in Austin, Texas, has reviewed Dina Del Bucchia’s Coping with Emotions and Otters on its delightful blog . They hit the nail on the …
…shelter this year! Dina Del Bucchia reads from Coping with Emotions and Otters. Stephen Collis reads from To the Barricades. …
…Number One by Bev Sellars, and Dina Del Bucchia’s Coping with Emotions and Otters was popular as well. There was also much ado …
…her presence, reading from her self-help send-up Coping with Emotions and Otters (2013) and taking instagram shots that made all …
…Del Bucchia reads from her first book of poetry, Coping with Emotions and Otters , which launched in Vancouver in April. The full …
…say, The Monument Cycles , In the Dog House , and Coping with Emotions and Otters are all now available! …
…for Dina Del Bucchia’s Coping with Emotions and Otters , available from Talonbooks next week. …
…start at 8:00 p.m. Come down and get your copy of Coping With Emotions and Otters by Dina Del Bucchia, In the Dog House by Wanda …