Describing the Body


How do authors describe the bodies of their characters? Do they describe what's in the mirror, what's inside, what's felt? Can you picture them existing in real life or do you have to fill in the blanks with your imagination?
Does civilisation hate its biological body?

Why do we swear in anger by using the words of body parts and functions such as "piss, fuck, shit, asshole" etc.?
What makes us attracted to or repulsed by some physical odors and sights?
Must the body be developed, transformed, transcended, rejected or ignored in order to free the spirit or does all life begin and end with the body?

Describe your own body and another person's. Pick a description from literature that you find attractive and another that is repulsive.


Student Maxine Factor (Spring,1997) used poetry and the coloring book to construct the following picture of a "mindbody":


REVEALING COLORS

My feet are cold
as are my hands
they've changed
to blue
the warmth gone
from the tips
the very ends of my being.
I'm turning numb
to touch.

My spine is jealous
each vertebrae
separately aches
brittle and confined
to its proper place.

The green
is rising
it escapes my face
which is blank
not a color to be found,
but it's crept into my hair,
this envy.
It's turned softness
into edges,
hard like my bones.

The bones, brown
the bones running
down my arms and legs
connecting the green and blue,
are trying to stay neutral
the brown,

but
my ribs are hot
and fiery
each spiraling
front to back
waiting to expand
the rage.


Student Maxine Factor wrote the following poem about her colorful eyes:

inside eyes

blue is streaming
in the pathway
of my sight
flooding focus
the waves crash in
from the base of my skull
invading the sterile white

the salty stream
turns red
drowning out the blue
and courses through my skin

shades previously hidden
color me vibrantly
and the canvas comes alive

strokes of yellow
brush my face
like daffodils

flexes of orange
tickle my thighs
and warm the flesh
dripping with moisture

my sight an inward palate
my body has grown eyes
nourishing a soul
that once saw only
in black and white.

Student Maxine Factor (Spring,1997) used poetry and the coloring book to construct the following picture of a "mindbody":


REVEALING COLORS

My feet are cold
as are my hands
they've changed
to blue
the warmth gone
from the tips
the very ends of my being.
I'm turning numb
to touch.

My spine is jealous
each vertebrae
separately aches
brittle and confined
to its proper place.

The green
is rising
it escapes my face
which is blank
not a color to be found,
but it's crept into my hair,
this envy.
It's turned softness
into edges,
hard like my bones.

The bones, brown
the bones running
down my arms and legs
connecting the green and blue,
are trying to stay neutral
the brown,

but
my ribs are hot
and fiery
each spiraling
front to back
waiting to expand
the rage.


Student Maxine Factor wrote the following poem about her colorful eyes:

inside eyes

blue is streaming
in the pathway
of my sight
flooding focus
the waves crash in
from the base of my skull
invading the sterile white

the salty stream
turns red
drowning out the blue
and courses through my skin

shades previously hidden
color me vibrantly
and the canvas comes alive

strokes of yellow
brush my face
like daffodils

flexes of orange
tickle my thighs
and warm the flesh
dripping with moisture

my sight an inward palate
my body has grown eyes
nourishing a soul
that once saw only
in black and white.

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