A New York School Magazine
PERSONAL INJURY
ISSUE 3
Download Full PDF
Issue 3, printed November 15 1976, edited by Michael Sappol. 68 pages. Cover image from The Neurobiology of the Amygdala by Basil Eleftheriou.
Since the first issue was so overwhelmingly populated by images relating to psychology, it’s nice to see Personal Injury go back to its “roots” for this cover image (so to speak). The image of “Julia attacking the wall” is actually from a case study of a woman named Julia S., who becomes violent after stimulation to the amygdala. The amygdala is an emotional center in the brain, tied to both aggression and hunger, and there are actually images of wave scans from the same study later on in the magazine. Although the images were intentionally removed from their sources, often without captioning and context, it is nonetheless interesting to find from whence they originated.
Something else interesting to note here is that, although the magazine belonged to the New York School and Sappol himself was living in East Village in Manhattan, not all of the poets published here were from New York. Many of them were from the Washington D.C. area, including Tina Darragh and Peter Inman - who later went on to join the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E group.
Wave scans from Julia S. case study appearing in issue 3.
In another example, if the address listed on the top of each of his poems is to be believed, Richard Harper was based in Canada. In his poem "RIFTS PROPOSED AFTER FINGERS TOUCH TRIGGERS" (pg 19), Harper included a note at the top, asking to send “four or five bucks to the above address because it is better than some others i have written”. The poem is almost a set of instructions: to be clear, it is a set of instructions in that it lists out the steps to write an “absurdist poem”, but lacks specificity - and is absurd enough to clearly be a joke. It is shorter and more specific than “How To Proceed in the Arts” (the poem half) by Frank O’Hara, yet Harper is just as deliberately airy and flippant.
"RIFTS PROPSED AFTER FINGERS TOUCH TRIGGERS" by richard harper
"Triptich" by Paul Violi
On the other end of the spectrum, there was Paul Violi, who was born, raised, and based in Brooklyn. Violi was most well known for his ability to “absorb and transform conventions of mass culture” [1] into new forms for his poetry. “Triptich” is a clear example of this, styled in the form of a TV guide, which lists programs for every half hour by channel (pg. 53-55). As the title suggests, the poem is separated into three sections: the Morning, Afternoon, and Evening programming, and under the program titles were occasional short descriptions. There is unexpected profundity to be found between the lines, such as in “KARMA. The live leafless / branches and the dead trees / against the sky, all / grappling with the wind.” However, Violi and Harper shared their sense of humor, with lines such as “a deer trying to climb a ladder” and “BITCH ON WHEELS” offering brevity and breaking through the density.
Front Back
To close out the third issue, the trend continues - the last few pages are once again direct mirrors to the initial pages, but the callback is even more obvious now. Where the first page showed an image of “beef carcass cuts”, the final page shows “mutton carcass cuts” in a similar layout and formatting. The back cover is literally a reflection of the front cover - it really doesn’t get much more obvious than that. After reading through the first two issues of Personal Injury, I feel as though I should have a better idea of what to expect: for example, the mirroring on the first and last pages of each issue; and yet, there are still so many things that take me by surprise. Every time I come across the last pages, to continue the example, I feel as though I went backwards in time to right before I started reading, and it’s refreshing. By now, this has become a fun Easter egg to look out for- and it keeps me on my toes for what is to come.
