Abstract - Adrian Miles

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Abstract
Julia Kristeva describes “the abject” as that which separates the self
from “the other”. The abject challenges our corporeal integrity by
reminding us of the threat of oblivion, or non-existence. This project
investigates the abject in the medical waiting room, through the
practice of poetry.
The medical receptionist, patients and media found within the waiting room are explored through experimental nonfiction poetry, using
the trope of abjection. It examines how and why the medical waiting
room is an uncomfortable, challenging space for its occupants.
This project discovers poetically the ways in which the abject is present in the medical waiting room, and in doing so investigates how
the self and the abject can be expressed through the creative practice
of poetry.
The results of this research form the folio Abjection: A Guide to the
Medical Waiting Room. This guide explores the liminal nature of the
waiting room, in light of the liminal feelings of abjection in the medical waiting room through experimental poetic techniques. These
techniques include “the ruptured sonnet”, re-contextualisation of
found media and stream of conscious style prose poetry.
These techniques allow for the nature of the self to be examined,
and for the uncomfortable feelings we try to deny within the waiting
room to come to the fore.
Lucy Fitzpatrick
RMIT University
2013
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Declaration
I certify that except where due acknowledgement
has been made, the work is that of the author alone;
the work has not been submitted previously, in whole
or in part, to qualify for any other academic award;
the content of the exegesis is the result of the work
which has been carried out since the official research
program; and any editorial work, paid or unpaid
carried out by a third party is acknowledged.
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Abjection: A Guide to the Medical Waiting
Room
Lucy Fitzpatrick, Ba/Llb
Submitted in partial fulfillment for the
requirements for th degree of Bachelor of Media
and Communication (Honours)
Dr Jessica Wilkinson
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor Jessica Wilkinson
for her inspiration and support in completing this
research. It would not be without her. Thankyou
Adrian Miles, David Carlin and the non-fiction lab for
your support over a wonderful year. I would especially
like to thank my family for their always generous help
and support. Thankyou to Travis for your love and
patient assistance.
School of Media and Communication, RMIT
University
October 2013
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
To view a copy of this license, visit http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a
letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street,
Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041,
USA.
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Contents
10: I. A Terror that Disassembles
20: II. The Abject and Poetry
34: III. Life Writing, the Stable “I” and the Abject
42: IV. Fictocriticism and this Exegesis
48: V. E
ncounters with Abjection in the Medical
Waiting Room
76: VI. Conclusion
79. Works Cited
Please note that this exegesis contains graphic images of the human body that may offend.
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I: The Abject
A. “A terror that disassembles”
When the eyes see or the lips touch that skin on the
surface of milk—harmless, thin as a sheet of cigarette
paper, pitiful as a nail paring—I experience a gagging
sensation and, still farther down, spasms in the
stomach, the belly; and all the organs shrivel up the
body, provoke tears and bile, increase heartbeat, cause
forehead and hands to perspire.
(Kristeva Powers of Horror 2)
greeny yellow it hangs from her nose and oozes towards
my desk she’s only 2 but her egg custard snot is a slow
gluey torrent that will fill lungs upon breath want to
slap push her away
(Lucy Fitzpatrick, Medical Receptionist)
an unexpected kiss love sex as often as possible
washing over me guilt half happier than I’d ever been
my best friend’s husband
(Marie Claire Poem 1)
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My poetic investigation of the doctor’s waiting room
is concerned with how the boundary between self and
other collapses in this environment, using the trope
of the abject. French poststructuralist psychoanalyst
Julia Kristeva theorises “the abject” in Powers of
Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982). This seminal
text examines how the self is made distinct from the
“other”. Kristeva describes “the abject” as the force
that lurks, threateningly, in between.
On the edge of nonexistence and hallucination, of a
reality that, if I acknowledge it, annihilates me. There,
abject and abjection are my safeguards. (Kristeva
Powers of Horror 2)
As Kristeva explains above, the abject is necessary
because it protects us from something that is familiar,
something that was once a part of ourselves – the
other – non-existence. Barbara Creed, who has written
extensively on the abject, particularly around what she
has termed the “monstrous feminine” or mother figure
in horror films, explains “although the subject must
exclude the abject, it must nevertheless, be tolerated,
for that which threatens to destroy life also helps to
define life” (46). We need the abject to remind of “the
boundaries and limitations of our self hood”, and,
paradoxically, that is why it is so terrifying, because
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it indicates “our physical wasting and ultimate death”
(Caslav Covino 17).
In describing the abject, Kristeva offers “a
theoretical account of the psychic origins and
mechanisms of revulsion and disgust” (Tyler 79). The
abject forebodes oblivion, and in doing so elicits a
physical response in a person. It is that which we
try to expel or clean up, like bodily fluid, immoral
desires, infantile dependence on our mother for care
and nourishment (Kristeva Powers of Horror 3).
Kristeva’s abject is the body that “leaks wastes and
fluids, in violation of the desire and hope for the “clean
and proper” body” (Caslav Covino 17).
It is a garden I have to do with—tubers and fruits
Oozing their jammy substances,
A mat of roots. My assistants hook them back. Stenches
and colors assail me.
(from Sylvia Plath’s The Surgeon at 2am 116)
transgressions reveals the frailty of those borders”
(Haig 39).
Drawing from my experiences, I explore how
the abject manifests in the medical waiting room. I
confront how the abject operates in this environment,
challenging my sense of self whilst I perform the
job of medical receptionist. Using experimental
poetry techniques, such as the “ruptured” sonnet,
stream-of-conscious style prose poetry, and the recontextualisation of media within the waiting room,
I have produced Abjection: A Guide to the Medical
Waiting Room. This guide embraces and revels in
abjection.
not my child not my job Medical Clinic Hold Please my
alcohol wipes clear the sinuses nice burn liquify my
phlegm satisfyingly salty warm away down my throat
(Lucy Fitzpatrick, Medical Receptionist)
Abjection … is immoral, sinister, scheming, and shady:
a terror that dissembles.
(Kristeva Powers of Horror 4)
Other examples of the abject include the corpse,
which violates the separation between ourselves and
death (Kristeva Powers of Horror 3) and menstruation,
which transgresses separation from a woman’s
bodily margins (Kristeva Powers of Horror 69). We
can thus see that the abject concerns borders, and it
“lies at the border of what is human, and through its
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B. The abject and the medical
waiting room
My interest in abjection in the context of the
medical waiting room is born from my experience
working as a medical receptionist in a suburban
Melbourne GP clinic, a position I held part-time for 8
years. Through my prolonged exposure to the waiting
room, I have come to view it as an uncomfortable
space where I am forced to confront my embodiment
and mortality, and that of others.
context of the medical waiting room. This is not only
in the form of the waiting patients, but potentially also
in secondary material that confronts our corporeal
coherence, such as magazines full of very thin or
fat people; pamphlets detailing our vulnerability to
disease; and the banal music that wafts through the
room from the radio, offering a sinister sense of calm.
nobody said it was easy oh it’s such a shame for us to
part nobody said it was easy nobody said it would be so
hard …
(Coldplay The Scientist, Koffee Radio)
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body
to surgeons.
(from Sylvia Plath’s Tulips 160)
I decided to “write the abject” of the medical
waiting room because Kristeva’s theory of the abject
provides such a persuasive framework for exploring
why I - and many other people - find it a confronting
and uncomfortable place.
The abject is couched in thoroughly corporeal
terms. It is explained as that which is “repulsive and
fascinating about bodies and, in particular…death,
decay, fluids, orifices, sex, defecation, vomiting,
illness, menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth” (Tyler
80). These are things that “belong”, or “live”, in the
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C. A liminal feeling in a liminal place
D. Abjection, the self and poetry
I am also drawn to explore the abject in the medical
waiting room because they are both liminal constructs.
The medical waiting exists on the boundary between
the sick and the well, inside and outside the body,
the doctor and the patient, the public sphere and the
private sphere. Abjection is also a “liminal” state between self and the other. It thus provides a suitable,
and potentially illuminating, theoretical framework
with which to guide my research of the medical
waiting room.
Upon consideration, my research pushes towards a
further, initially unanticipated, opportunity. I will not
only investigate the collapse of the boundary between
self and other through abjection in the waiting. I will
also reflexively explore abjection, the self and their
relationship to language and poetry. If the abject is a
feeling, of a precipice that signifies the approach of
non-existence, it is on the border of the un-sayable, of
nothing. I will examine how language can be used to
express abjection, and why this is possible.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
(from Seamus Heaney’s Death of a Naturalist no p)
This theme of liminality is echoed, again, in the
figure of the medical receptionist, who sits between
the doctor and the patient. She is also a conduit,
the person who physically takes the payment from
the patient, to be given to the doctor, and thus eases
any social awkwardness associated with paying for
personal services.
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Ultimately, this brings my research to the point
of exploring if can I write the abject in the medical
waiting room, and, if so, how do I do that? Will this
abject reflect my experience of abjection in the waiting
room, and resonate with the reader, so they too feel a
loss of self?
R1: Medical clinic, how can I help you?…
R1: Oh I see, what was it for?…
R1: Oh, no. We don’t do those sort over the phone...
R1: Absolutely no, you’ll need a review...
R1: Ok, bye…
(from 1.25pm)
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II: THE ABJECT
AND POETRY
A. The symbolic, the semiotic and
poetry
In order to explore abjection in the medical waiting
room, and discover if I can “write the abject”, I have
created a folio of experimental prose poetry titled
Abjection: A Guide to The Medical Waiting Room.
Poetry is my research method. It is also a medium
Kristeva identifies for expressing the abject, along with
music, painting and sculpture (Powers of Horror 132).
It was Revolution in Poetic Language 1974, in
which Kristeva first explained the origins of abjection
and its relationship to poetry, based on her analysis
of the symbolic system (Caslav Covino 17). The
symbolic system is “the medium by means of which
understanding and discourse show up” (Ricket 262).
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It is comprised of two forces, the semiotic and the
symbolic.
The symbolic “language points at persons and
things in order to communicate with others” (Caslav
Calvino 20). It is the rational “masculine” language of
self-hood, patriarchy, the law (Ricket 260).
for god’s sake go to reception we don’t necessarily
know what you look like and don’t know you are here
unless you tell us
(Sign Poem, on wall of clinic)
The semiotic is derived from the “chora”(Kristeva
Powers of Horror 93). Kristeva’s chora is based upon
Plato’s, which appeared in Timaeus (Margaroni 79),
and concerns “ideas of being and creation, genesis
and inventions” (Ricket 256) (author’s italics). In
Kristevean terms, the semiotic chora is derived from
the intimate experience of mother and infant, such as
suckling, a mother talking to a child, cuddling etc.
(Caslav Calvino 18).
Kristeva explains that, in order to enter the
masculine symbolic order of language and self-hood,
these experiences from infanthood must be rejected
(Caslav Calvino19). However, these early experiences
between mother and child is a language of its own
defined “by patterns of sound and movement”. The
semiotic chora remains “the ground of all symbolic, or
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social language; it is what makes language acquisition
possible” (Caslav Calvino 19).
Kristeva explains that the abject is the reminder of
what we have rejected in order to enter the symbolic
order and establish our “selves”, including our mothers
(Caslav Calvino 21). Thus the abject is linked to the
semiotic chora, and an innate fear of prelinguistic
feelings, and experience of oblivion. It is important
to remember that although heterogenous elements, the
semiotic and the symbolic are both necessary to the
process of signification (Caslav Covino 17).
having nothing to hide the mirror never lies more more
more acne spots and dark red flora in the gardens of
London Shanghai Dubai
(Marie Claire Magazine Poem 2)
little fingers and toes move around wind up tight it does
not matter they creep and crawl microscopic centipede
rows and rows deranged squiggly legs all over your
legs clinging to the hair fast little legs skulking and
sidling breathing and licking feeding like a mite
reproducing on your skin over and over
(from Pathogens on skin poem)
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B. Poetry to unleash the semiotic chora
If one wished to proceed farther still along the
approaches to abjection, one would find neither
narrative nor theme but a recasting of syntax and
vocabulary—the violence of poetry, and silence.
(Julia Kristeva Powers of Horror 141)
Kristeva describes poetry as a means of finding
the semiotic chora, and thus feelings of abjection
(Revolution in Poetic Language 79). This is important
for understanding how I will write the abject. Kristeva
explains, because poetry is “violent” it allows us to
explore these experiences as it ruptures the symbolic
system of signification (Kristeva Power of Horror 141).
Poetry, through its capacity to play with syntax
and vocabulary, allows language and meaning to be
subverted, for a multiplicity of concurrent feelings
and ideas to be expressed. What Kristeva calls
“the semiotic” in language can be explored, and the
“possibility for breaking out of the constraints of a
law-governed symbolic order, to create art that violates
conventional rules, and “murders” proper meaning”
(Caslav Calvino 19). Poetry allows “instinct to
infiltrate the symbolic meaning of language” (Bedient
807).
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Words that flip switches.
I am trying to say
how they work in a world I am close with.
I am in a place called there and
I am trying to make a place called here.
(Juliana Spahr Fuck You - Aloha - I love You 15)
Whether one accepts Kristeva’s analysis of
language or not, it provides a useful framework for
understanding the relationship between poetry and
the “unsayable”, such as abjection. In my practice, I
utilise poetic devices such as free flowing, punctuation
free syntax, experimental forms (soundscapes,
informal sonnets and stream of conscious style prose),
to re-examine the medical waiting room through the
lens of abjection, and to find meaning and feelings that
the rational language of the symbolic system does not
acknowledge.
I also re-contextualise material found in the waiting
room, such as magazines and pamphlets, to tear
apart the ostensibly “symbolic” language, to find and
explore the abject. These poetic devices enable the
abject and the semiotic chora, which is “emotions,
sensations, and other marks and traces of psychical
and material experience” (Ricket 260), to be expressed
and confronted.
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As this environment is re-conceptualised, I break
down the illusion of the stable self/other binary within
the waiting room, and explore the abstract feeling of
abjection that we try to deny. It is through poetry, that
we can see how language “will always sing more than
we can hear” (duPlessis 85). This is discussed further
in chapter V with reference to my folio pieces.
C. The abject and feminist debate
At this point, it is important to note the controversy
surrounding Kristeva’s theory of the abject and it’s
“contribution” to feminism, and explore this in relation
to my project. Kristeva’s theory of the abject has been
criticised as providing a basis for the “othering” of
women to patriarchy in two key ways (see Tyler 2009,
Spivak 1990, Kraus 1999). This is on the basis of her
analysis of the symbolic system of communication,
where the maternal and the semiotic chora are both
rejected for the paternal and the symbolic, as a child
acquires language (Kristeva Revolution in Poetic
Language 14). It is argued, based on Kristeva’s
analysis, to enter the symbolic system is “the turn
against the female body” of the mother through “a
process of psychic violence” (Price & Schildrick 6).
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Secondly, Kristeva has been criticised for
providing an explanation for the perpetual “othering”
of women through abjection, for its focus upon the
maternal and bodily functions. Imogen Tyler argues
“the Kristevan abject paradigm risks reproducing,
rather than challenging, histories of violent disgust
towards maternal bodies” (77). Women’s “leaking”
bodies, which give birth, lactate and menstruate, are
archetypal examples of the abject. As their “fluids”
are abject, the bodies of women they are associated
with become the “other”, oblivion.
Upon embarking on this project, I was quite sure
it was not a “feminist” piece; that it was not related
to “women’s writing”; and that I could ignore issues
of gender. However, a number of emergent themes
began to echo, exposing the naivety of this belief.
Firstly, as I became interested in Kristeva’s theory of
the abject, I discovered that she links the language of
poetry to the language of the semiotic chora and the
maternal. The semiotic chora is the basis of our prelinguistic feelings, from where abjection is derived. I
have adopted this framework for understanding the
abject, and appropriated it as a metaphor for writing
the abject.
Secondly, all my pieces are from the “gaze” of
the medical receptionist. The medical receptionist
is always female. My project is an experience of the
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abject, and it is also an exploration of her experience
of abjection in the role of medical receptionist. In
many ways I am giving a voice to the normally
marginalised presence of the medical receptionist,
and her experience of abjection. In doing this, I am
also challenging and exploring the public (masculine,
symbolic, the law) / private (feminine, semiotic,
emotional) dichotomy, and the place of the medical
waiting room which straddles this divide.
However, in writing the liminal experience of
abjection in the liminal space of the medical waiting
room, I find it difficult to identify Kristeva or her
theory as responsible for the “othering” of women,
or for being anti-feminist. This is because the
semiotic chora and the symbolic are two heterogenous
but entirely necessary forces within linguistic
communication (Moi The Kristeva Reader 12).
I can see how the process of abjection as it is
applied to the female body results in the “othering”
of women based on their biological processes. This
is particularly demonstrated by the societal fear
of women’s menstrual blood, which shows belief
in the capacity of a woman’s body “to defile and
contaminate” (Price & Schildrick 6).
However, I agree with Barbara Creed that this
should be read descriptively, not prescriptively (53). I
cannot accept that Kristeva’s abject is accepting or
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pre-determining of the subjugation of women. This is
particularly when contextualised within the medical
clinic, where all bodies and bodily functions are
encompassed and dealt with within the paradigms
of self/other, healthy/sick, inside/outside, clean body
(acceptable) / oozing body (disgusting).
Nonetheless, feminist poet and literary theorist
Rachael Blau duPlessis argues “Kristeva’s location
of two developmentally distinct registers of normal
language…offers a powerful picture through
which certain elements of gender cruise” (85). In
undertaking this project, I can see that this is an
accurate reflection of abjection within the medical
waiting room. The language of the abject is the
language of the feelings and thoughts we try to deny.
In the waiting room it is the thoughts and feelings
we hide whilst we wait politely, as well and it is
the language of the normally silent female medical
receptionist.
It is important to recognise, however, that Kristeva
does not specifically identify as a feminist, and, as
Toril Moi notes her “relationship with feminism
has always been that of a somewhat critical fellowtraveler” (The Kristeva Reader 9). Kristeva’s analysis
of language and description of the process of abjection
is not presented within a feminist framework; rather it
concerns the symbolic system of language. This can
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be contrasted to the likes of Hélène Cixous who, in The
Laugh of Medusa, implores woman to write:
Woman must write herself: must write about women
and bring women to writing, from which they have been
driven away as violently as from their bodies - for the
same reason, by the same law, with the same fatal goal.
(875)
Feminist academic Toril Moi argues that the
debate about the contribution of postsructrualism
to (or desecration of) feminism is no longer a
relevant or useful debate for feminists (I’m not
a feminist but...1739). She argues that “women
coming to intellectual maturity at the tail end of
poststructuralism have to struggle free of the legacy of
an intellectual tradition that has been fully explored.
We won’t get a fresh and freshly convincing analysis
of women’s situation until we find new theoretical
paradigms” (I’m not a feminist but...1740).
I find this particularly compelling in light of thirdwave feminism, which acknowledges factors of gender,
race, class and sexuality in defining “feminism” and
feminist issues in the contemporary world. Ultimately,
my research is not concerned with a post-structuralist
discourse on power and gender. I am concerned
with the abject in the waiting room and the potential
of poetry to explore this abjection by rupturing the
prevalence of the symbolic over the semiotic through
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poetics. However, I do acknowledge themes within
my work of giving the margins (medical clinic waiting
room) and the marginalised (the medical receptionist,
feelings of abjection) a voice.
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stable, subjective “I” that autobiography traditionally
embraces.
III: LIFE WRITING,
THE STABLE “I”
AND THE ABJECT
My investigation of abjection in the medical waiting
room is a form of life writing. The poems are based
on my experiences working as a medical receptionist
in a suburban Melbourne medical clinic. Traditionally,
life writing is the autobiographical writing of a
person’s “story” along a linear narrative (Gilmore
4). This form of autobiography presents history and
subjectivity as “fixed” in the story of a person’s life
(Gilmore 3). Traditional autobiographical life writing
is an inappropriate tool for investigating abjection in
the medical waiting room. Abjection relates to the
instability and illusion of a stable subject (Kristeva
Powers of Horror 3). In exploring the medical waiting
room I am investigating how abjection destabilises the
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My experimental life writing practice, which
allows the stable “I” to be challenged and investigated
in light of abjection, is grounded in postmodern
theory and practice, particularly autoethnography.
Autoethnography is “a genre of qualitative, reflexive,
autobiographical writing and research which uses
the researcher as subject (Boje and Tyler, 2008; Ellis
and Bochner, 2000; Humphreys, 2005)”(Haynes 135).
Auto-ethnographic work “connects the personal to the
cultural by analysing the self within a social context
(Reed-Danahay, 1997) in order to extend sociological
understanding” (Haynes 135).
Autoethnographic poetry is “composed by
researchers to reveal some experience of the
researcher, shedding light on aspects of life pulled
from personal experiences that would not traditionally
be considered data” (Lahman 40), such as subjective
accounts of events and feelings arranged into creative
pieces.
For example, Dianne Ketelle composed poetry from
interviews she conducted with elderly members of a
rural US (19). She was drawn to autoethnographic
poetry practice because “aspects of a real, told story
can have poetic qualities, or be conveyed through
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poetic language, which does not diminish the value of
the story” (20).
Ketelle used her data to write poems about the
town, and the people’s experiences within it, and in
doing so captured themes of life in a rural farming
town, migration, family, and relationships with family.
Ketelle chose poetry because as a method of research
because of its capacity to “translate feelings into
words, it is a useful form in exploring and clarifying
feelings about self and other” (20).
Living at the foot of the little mountains
our lives play out like
a western on the big screen
Today we will trade biscuits for nuts with the Indians
(Ketelle May’s Grandparents 24)
What follows a strict chronology has no memory.
(Lyn Hejinian My Life 16)
Autoethnography is a postmodern practice because
it questions the stability of history and subjectivity
(Gilmore 5). Linda Hutcheon describes postmodernism
as “a contradictory phenomenon, one that uses and
abuses, installs and then subverts, the very concepts
it challenges” (4). Post-modern practices provide
tools for the interrogation of the very institutions they
encompass (Hutcheon 9). In my poetic investigation
of the abject in the waiting room in light of Kristeva’s
theory of the abject, I am challenging the institution of
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the medical clinic; the traditional life writing practices
such as autobiography; and the stable subjective “I”.
It is post-modern autoethnographic research through
experimental poetry techniques that affords this
opportunity.
An awful lot of fiction is immensely autobiographical,
and a lot of nonfiction is highly imagined. We dream
ourselves awake every minute of the day.
(David Shields Reality Hunger 63)
C. Destabilising the lyric “I” to find
the abject
Abjection is a challenge to the stable “I”. Therefore
my poetic practice must deconstruct and examine
the stable “I”. Traditionally, poetic life writing
centred upon the lyric poem which is about the poet’s
experience or emotion as opposed to character (Gill
and Waters 3).
The lyric poem is associated with rhetoric, which
implies an attempt by the poet to persuade the
audience of something (Altieri 123). Rachel Blau
duPlessis notes historically “the centrality of the lyric
voice (few characters in a poem, little dialogue) means
that one point of view is privileged. And the speaking
subject is most often male” (140).
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I attempt to “rupture” (duPlessis 144) the traditional
lyric voice of poetry and engage through what
duPlessis calls “polyphonic” poetry (141). This can
be seen across themes of the unstable “I,” as patient
and receptionist, who becomes engulfed by abjection
within the waiting room. I “Write the unwritten.
Paint the undepicted” (duPlessis 144).
Sucking is dangerous. The danger of sucking.
(Gertrude Stein Selections 243)
L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poets Lyn Hejinian and
Gertrude Stein provide stylistic and theoretical
inspiration for this process. Hejinian’s My Life loops
thoughts, sounds and feelings, creating experimental
poetry that explores what it is like to remember. She
demonstrates the non-linear fragmented nature of
remembering, multiplicity of being, and the illusion of
the “I”.
or “poetic empiricism” (Chodat 587) that embraces an
individual’s objective subjectivity.
Stein’s experimental kaleidoscopic language
of sensations and associations in Tender Buttons
challenges and explores the illusion of one cohesive,
normative, vision of the world, and the place of the
“I” in it by, by turning the notion of empiricism on it’s
head (Chodat 582). This is arguably congruent with
the idea of “rupturing” the symbolic to find semiotic
feelings of abjection. It also relates to the validity of
autoethnography, which is about subjective experience,
as a post-modern research method.
All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not
resembling. The difference is spreading.
(Gertrude Stein Tender Buttons 1)
But a word is a bottomless pit.
(Lyn Hejinian My Life 8)
Gertrude Stein, in her text Tender Buttons, argues
that the subjective experience of the world, free from
associations of memory is as reliable and authentic as
scientific processes (Chodat 582). Importantly, she
repudiates the hegemony of the empirical subjective
“I” by exploring the possibility of “romantic science”
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light of this, I feel it is appropriate, and enriching for
the project, to adopt a fictocritical exegetical style.
IV:
FICTOCRITICISM
AND THIS
EXEGESIS
Accompanying this exegesis is the folio Abjection:
A Guide to the Medical Waiting Room. Abjection is
a collection of poems in which I explore the liminal
nature of the waiting room, in light of the liminal
experience of abjection, through experimental poetry.
I use experimental poetry as an alternative form of life
writing, that resists a “fixed” linear narrative, or stable
“I”, and instead embraces the “feelings of abjection”
we often try to hide, or cover up whilst waiting to see
a doctor. The nature of this project thus concerns
puncturing, or rupturing, conventional “orders”. In
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The docile young body of an inexperienced girl in a
pink dress. I’ll coerce her. I am a professor Elephant
and I will teach you everything now. Using a poetic tone. How dare she! This is fictocriticism. I combine an
idea with me now and I write me. I do not separate one
from the other. But the university does not join me now.
This is not linear.
(from Ania Walwicz’s The Reluctant Debutant 336)
Fictocriticism is a form of academic hybridisation
(Flavell 51), that allows a student to “bring together
the different knowledges they acquire at university
… to relativise them and to insert their own speaking
position within the array of authoritative discourses
that theory, for example, hegemonises” (Brewster
90). Fictocriticism is about blurring the boundaries
between creative practice, theory and a writer’s
personal experience.
It is with this in mind that I combine my personal
story of working as a medical receptionist; theory
relating to Kristeva’s abject and the self; the
inspiration and influence of other practitioners; and
my own creative practice to provide an experimental
intertextual discourse on abjection in the medical
waiting room. Fictocriticism, in terms of this exegesis,
allows me to engage further with my examination and
discussion of abjection.
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Fictocriticism has also informed my decision
to include abject images to accompany my poetic
account of waiting to see the doctors, and within
this exegesis. I feel the pictures, which provide a
visual depiction of things people find abject, and
demonstrate the paucity of the human body, enhance
the experience of Abjection. They jolt the viewer, and
elicit the “disgusted” feeling that abjection evokes.
These pictures also anchor the, at times, abstract and
conceptual nature of the poetic text.
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V: ENCOUNTERS
WITH ABJECTION
IN THE MEDICAL
WAITING ROOM
Kristeva warns that to seek to write abjection
is “a journey without project, without faith, to the
end of the night” (Powers of Horror 186). Finding
abjection is to find what we fear most, and in doing
so it is self-perpetuating. This is because the abject
cannot be assimilated, because to assimilate it would
be to dissolve the boundary that it represents: the
boundary between self and “other”. This boundary is
the difference between stable text, stable perspective
and the stable subjective “I” and a more ambiguous,
multifarious understanding of the self. With this in
mind I embark on Abjection: A Guide to the Medical
Waiting Room. The following chapter is a discussion
of the results of my research by poetry of the medical
waiting room, in light of Kristeva’s abject.
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A. The waiting room as abject space
Through my poetic investigation of the medical
waiting room, I have discovered the waiting room
itself, not merely the people and material within,
challenges the division between self and other. Like
abjection, the waiting room is an experience of
liminality. As with all communal spaces of waiting
(such as airport terminals and bus stations), it is
neither here nor there, neither in nor out (Ehn and
Lofgren 10).
Waiting rooms force us to be still and quiet, they
frustrate “our desire for action, accomplishment
and control” (Tanner 122) of our bodies and our
environment. We are forced to sit in a self-contained
way, whilst feeling unwell, and opposite other unwell
people. The very space of the waiting room is abject,
and induces a feeling of abjection within me.
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s-s-skinny ll-ooo-ve spits the radio
10 wild secrets to please your man or
moves you think he wants (but so doesn’t)
8 words a single girl never wants hear
a new picture of the princess’ unborn child
Catherine, Mary huh who’s turn
Oh
to feed your family for $1.20 a head
make tuna and cheese casserole
margarine is a key ingredient
s-s-skinny ll-ooo-ve ohhh my mmmmmy my
it’s all about mum’s we meet weather girls’ mums
secret husband, the man she tried to hide tells
what to do in the bear or is it bull market:
save time and money on home made cards and cookies
this xmas.
(Magazine Rack)
My folio is representative of my experiences in the
waiting room and reflects the fragmented nature of
the space. There are four “sections” to the folio: the
medical receptionist, the patients, soundscapes and
the magazines and pamphlets. Sprinkled amongst
these are lyrics from songs heard in the waiting room.
There is no narrative. Although arranged into sections
there is no beginning, middle or end. The finished
collection could be read in any order. For the reader,
this mimics the experience of being in the waiting
room, where one’s attention can jump from one thing
to another, for example from a magazine, to someone
sitting opposite you, to just sitting absorbing the
environment. It also relates to abjection, which tears
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apart the idea of a unified cohesive “I”, which a linear
narrative would have suggested
Burning here in my room, feeling that the walls are
moving closer, silent scene, the dark takes me, leads me
to the ending of another day, I’m haunted…
(Lacuna Coil Spellbound, Koffee Radio)
B. The sounds of abjection
The waiting room evokes “a weight of
meaninglessness, about which there is nothing
insignificant, and which crushes me.” (Kristeva
Powers of Horror 2) I attempt to capture the “weight
of meaninglessness” of the waiting room through
poetic “soundscapes”.
Insert slide
These soundscapes are akin to a transcription of the
noises in the clinic at certain times of the day. They
are poems of conversations, crying babies, coughing,
and the sound of the keyboard and ringing phones.
They read left to right, top to bottom, however, at
busier times of the day they become almost unreadable
and noises overlap and conversations and meaning are
lost. They soundscapes also reflect the ebb and flow of
noise at different times of day, more visually “busy”
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55
at busier times of the day, such as mid morning or mid
afternoon.
These pieces are inspired by Craig Dworkin’s Fact
in that any of the soundscapes can be changed to
reflect the time and day the sounds were surveyed, yet
they would still be in essence the same experience.
Like Fact, which is a list of component elements of
the medium on which the poem is displayed (eg piece
of paper, lcd display), the soundscapes attempt to
demonstrate the materiality of language.
As Dworkin explains, there is so much language
already, no one really needs to write anymore, it just
needs to be reused (Flarf is Dionysus. Conceptual
Writing is Apollo 315). In my soundscapes, language
that exists in the medical clinic is “re-used” to explore
the space, in terms of abjection.
Not only is the language “material” in the
soundscapes, but also the idea of the “I” is. There is
the “I” of those speaking in the space. However this
“I” is merely noise in the conceptual “picture” of
abjection they form. And this “I” signifies a loss of an
“I” for the reader, who cannot engage with the room,
or indeed someone in that room who is overwhelmed
by the noise and loses their own sense of “I”.
Furthermore, when the time of day is quieter,
such as over lunchtime, the reader, or person in
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the waiting room, can “overhear” and engage with
the conversations in the room. However, these
conversations tend to be the receptionist on the phone,
a one sided conversation. This invites the reader to
become engaged with, and speculate on the nature
of the unheard side of the conversation. This is
conceptually like abjection, as the reader is drawn
into a conversation they can never really know, of
something they can never hear, of a nothing.
In terms of the “sounds” of the room, and
their relationship to abjection, I also consider the
“inoffensive” radio that is played in the background.
I have found the “easy listening” songs on the radio
often establish a foreboding of abjection, even though
the music is supposedly innocuous and banal. At my
previous employment, we played the relaxing music of
Koffee, a digital station aired by DMG Radio Australia
(by-line time to chill). However, many of the lyrics
of the commonly played “relaxing” tunes ironically
overshadow the panic that the abjection that occurs in
the waiting room causes.
Now that I have found someone, I’m feeling more alone,
Than I ever have before, She’s a brick and I’m drownin’
slowly…
(Ben Fold’s Five Brick, Koffee Radio)
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C. Patients
1. Rupturing the sonnet
Ostensibly, abject figures occupy the medical
waiting room. Archetypal examples of Kristeva’s
abject abound in the plethora of sick patients. I
remember once being startled and shocked by an
ancient shrunken man, hanging like a limp tea towel,
off his oxygen tank. There is also, without exception,
a gaggle of gooey kids. They are like sticky lollies
oozing snot and coughing, mouth uncovered, as they
smear their fingers over door handles, the front desk
and eftpos machines. However, in exploring the
collapse of the boundary between self and other in the
waiting room, I needed to go beyond mere description.
I needed to explore and find my feelings of abjection,
find the “semiotics” within the room, to write the
abject.
In order to find the abject, I needed to rupture the
stable “I”. To do this, I drew upon and then subverted
the canonical poetic genre of the sonnet. Sonnets
provide “a dialectical method” (Denize & Newlin 100)
to explore emotional themes (Nyemaster 14). A sonnet
usually focuses on one subject, and traditionally
follows a strict form (Nyemaster 14). An English
(as opposed to an Italian) sonnet is comprised of
three stanzas of four lines (rhyming ABAB, CDCD,
EFEF), and a final rhyming couplet (Nyemaster 16).
Features suggested to be characteristic or definitive
of the sonnet “include repetition, formal unity/
division of octave and sestet, use of volta, asymmetry,
argument and development, and a preoccupation with
contradictions of the self” (Holton 373). Importantly,
the sonnet is strongly associated with the lyric voice
and the stable subjective “I”.
I pierced the expectations of the sonnet a number
of ways. Firstly, I only loosely called upon the genre,
enough for the sonnet to be invoked but so little as to
suggest a subversion of the form and its expectations.
The sonnets about the people in the waiting room
are 14 lines long, however, beyond this they do not
resemble sonnets. They do not follow a strict meter
or rhyming pattern. Furthermore, the subject of
the sonnet are unconventional, they are vignettes
describing how people in the waiting room are abject,
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and cause abjection. This experimental method is
paired with ambiguous discussions about people’s
bodies.
flakey blue paint is greasy skin
peeling from sinewy woody flesh
a familiar fence to a familiar ledge
over a small pond that still feels big
(From Toy Box)
Secondly, I avoided using the first person “I”.
This meant that I refused to engage with the stable
lyric “I”, and thus the concept that there is a stable,
unified subject. This was then complemented by
a removal of punctuation and capitalization. This
makes the sonnets read smoothly and freely, and
invites the reader to be carried away and engaged with
the “ambiguity and oscillation of abjection” (Haig
38). For example, in my poem Ladies, who are like
dying flowers, I tried to give the sense that we are all
flowers – we but, bloom and eventually wither. Whilst
we identify with this, there is the undercurrent of the
haggard old things hanging about the room, being
scary and old.
when did the bees stop f licking sticky tongues
at shiny drops of nectar
even the bats ignore
sickly nice imperial leather soap
over a coles brand ginger nut spice
(from Ladies)
2. The animal as metaphor
In exploring my feelings at the site of a withered
old man’s papery skin, or a young child pinching
his squirming penis when he needs to go to the
toilet, I found myself constantly drawn to animals as
metaphors. This is not surprising given, as Kristeva
explains, “The abject confronts us, on the one hand,
with those fragile states where man strays on the
territories of animal” (Powers of Horror 11). Little
Boys sees small boys depicted as wriggly worms or
larvae, coughing kak, kak, kak, which could also be a
response of disgust to their disgusting embodiment.
wriggling on the wall
simmering creamy larvae
snotting buttery mucous out and down his front
kak kak kak
(from Little Boys)
I likened an old man to Gregor in Kaf ka’s
Metamorphosis, who one day inexplicably wakes to
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find himself transformed into an insect. Physical
features of the old man, such as papery dry skin, evoke
a feeling of disgust for the frailty of the old. This
reader too can experience this feeling reading about
the old man, such that the folio becomes a conceptual
piece that evokes abjection in the reader. This fear, of
death and dying, is a direct threat to the self. Also, of
the futility and meaninglessness of our mortality, if we
are all to become dry old beetles.
He had been reduced to the condition of an ancient
invalid and it took him long, long minutes to crawl
across his room - crawling over the ceiling was out of
the question.
(Kaf ka Metamorphosis no pp)
locks of a society lady. Presented this way, androgyny
is compelling, beautiful and safely and acceptably
“other” within the “fantasy” pages of the magazines.
However, this is contrasted to the uncomfortable
encounter with someone exhibiting unusual sexual
indicators within the waiting rooom. I thus finish the
poem with a contrast between the beautiful Andrej
figure in the magazine and the figure of an old bearded
lady “nanny goat,” who is a patient in the waiting
room.
wiry arms and legs are a slow scurry
rustling and wheezing to the corner
eughhhhhhh eughhhhhhh eughhhhhhh
an ancient amber exoskeleton.
breastless hipless wasteless breathless
a vermiform sway glistening
invisible threads of golden stubble.
a call turning reluctantly from the gloss
to a grey goatee a dry old thatch
fighting, scrap with a pair of pendulous breasts
that sway slowly under a cotton t-shrit
the coarse hairs of the humble old nanny goat
punch scratch and gag like fingers down the throat
(from Mr Greg)
(from Andrej)
Similarly, my encounter with androgyny in the
waiting room explores themes of inside/outside, self/
other. I read about top model Andrej Pejic who is an
androgynous male who models women’s clothing in an
issue of Vogue at the doctors. Andrej is very beautiful
in a conventionally feminine way. He has long blond
hair, full pink lips and fine features. I liken him to
an Afghan Hound, the dogs with the most beautiful
faces of a greyhound and the thick straight long blond
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D. Abjection and media
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore and I
don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore and when do
you think it will all become clear ‘Caus I’m being taken
over by the Fear…
( Lily Allen’s The Fear, Koffee Radio)
I found that the material in the waiting room
replicates and augments a feeling of abjection. As
a person reads this material whilst waiting, it is
internalised by the mind’s “reading voice”. This
dissolves the physical barrier of the page, which
separates the patient from the content. In a space
where we may already be feeling anxious about our
bodies, and those of others, this material focuses
further on issues of corporeal integrity, such as body
image, food, and disease.
The media in the waiting room, also demonstrate
how abjection is linked and informed by the external
values of our society. In her discussion of the abject,
Kristeva explains this with reference to the pioneering
work of anthropologist Mary Douglas in Purity and
Danger (1966). Kristeva quotes Mary Douglas:
Matter issuing from them [the orifices of the body] is
marginal stuff of the most obvious kind. Spittle, blood,
milk, urine, faeces or tears by simply issuing forth
have traversed the boundary of the body. [. . .] The
mistake is to treat bodily margins in isolation from all
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other margins.11” Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger
(London, Boston, and Henley: Rout- ledge and Kegan
Paul, 1969), P- 121) (Powers of Horror 69)
Kristeva explains we thus see that “the potency
of pollution is therefore not an inherent one; it is
proportional to the potency of the prohibition that
founds it” (Powers of Horror 69). This means the
abject and abjection is directly related to societal
attitudes to what should be expelled and “othered”, on
what should be marginalised.
The gap in the muscle is filled with fat from the upper
eyelid easing migraines and smoothing frown lines.
(Men’s Health Poem 2)
As with the soudscapes, I re-contextualised material
that is already in the waiting room to explore where
and how abjection operates within this space.
1. Pamphlets
There are generally two types of pamphlets in
the waiting room; those that are provided by the
State or Federal Governments as part of their various
health initiatives; and those that are provided by
pharmaceutical companies who have a financial
interest in promoting their drugs.
One brochure I picked up was curiously labelled
Pesky Periods? and had a series of “smiley faces”
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drawn on expressing various emotions. Ostensibly,
it could be about anything. Upon closer inspection it
concerned menstruation, and was aimed at younger
women. The image on the front depicted a confused,
fragmented “I”, in various emotional states (something
like the below):
:)
:(
:I
:{
:o
Another brochure I picked up was called Staying
Healthy in the Heat and was issued by the State
Government of Victoria. It provided information
on staying cool in the heat that a person of average
intelligence would find insultingly obvious (for
example turn fans on, wear light cotton clothing).
I also picked up a fairly innocuous brochure about
anaphylaxis, and the availability of the emergency
“epipen” injection as a remedy.
In exploring brochures in the medical waiting
room, I could not help but engage in an exercise
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of parody in an effort to highlight their impact.
Melbourne poet Jordie Albiston notes that, unlike
other forms of literature, such as prose which is “very
crowded factually”, poetry provides “all these gaps,
these interpretive choices” (Wilkinson Rabbit 9 126).
I stripped back what Albiston calls the “crowded
factually” language of the brochures, to see how “gaps
and lucanae can be responsible for what is missing as
much as for upsetting or destabilising what is there”
(Wilkinson Rabbit 9 127). This is my method of
trying to find the “semiotic” and the abject.
I parodied the How to Stay Healthy in the Heat
pamphlet by constructing a “How to Stay in Heat”
brochure. This plays on the term “in heat” meaning
sexually aroused. It still makes sense as a brochure
about keeping cool in warm temperatures, but it has an
overtly sexual tone. The overly sexual tone highlights
the excessive nature of the original brochure, which
assumes an averagely intelligent person can’t look after
themselves when it is a hot day. It is an imposition,
a waste of money and a bit creepy for the State
Government to produce and disseminate this useless
material.
Similarly, the Pesky Periods? brochure is marketed
at teenager girl. It is a guide to broaching the topic
of menstruation with your doctor. However, it is
clearly angling at promoting the oral contraceptive
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pill to young women (those at school and shy about
talking about their periods). I found a monologue of a
grumpy, un-empowered teenager girl within it, which
highlights how, even in using“kind” language, this
brochure stigmatises menstruation, particularly the
“horror” of coping with bleeding. Kristeva explains
that “Urine, blood, sperm, excrement then show up in
order to reassure a subject that is lacking its “own and
clean self” (Powers of Horror 53).
In terms of the anaphylaxis brochure, I wrote out
the symptoms of anaphylaxis as if one was going
into anaphylactic shock, having trouble breathing
and getting words out, until the speaker presumably
passes out. The brochure writes calmly the symptoms
of anaphylaxis, which serious as young children being
unable to breath and going floppy. The re-writing
finds the horror and fear within this text. This is the
abjection of a fear that suddenly, perhaps with only
slight exposure to something like peanut butter or
some mystery ingredient in medicine, being struck
down, of losing consciousness or dying.
2. Magazines
Similarly, magazines provide guidance on what
should be expelled from the body, and what is
acceptable. Again, as we read magazines, the division
between self and other collapses as we engage with
the content “in our minds”. I composed loose sonnets
from issues of magazines found in the waiting room
(such as New Idea, Good Food, Men’s Health).
This is inspired by Kenneth Goldsmith, whose work
transcribing the The New York Times in The Day,
2009, values and explores the banal and everyday,
whilst demonstrating the ways in which seemingly
innocuous encounters with media can be loaded with
significance, depending upon how one reads them.
For example, his transcription of the he The New
York Times from September 11, 2001, when read in
retrospect and in light of the terror attacks that day
acquire a clear sense of doom and foreboding
Indulge heavenly rich oozing dark chocolate dive right
in
(Good Food Magazine Poem 2)
Anaphylaxis poem – by epipen (Alphapharm Int.)
Anaphylaxis is t-t-tting-ling in the mouth
Ana phy
red ness
Ana
laxis is hhhhhhives weltssss or body phy
fwace llwips and
laxis ssssswell ing ob the ewyes
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In re-contextualising these magazines, I ruptured
their symbolic language, to find other experiences
within the magazines. I wanted to emulate the
process of reading magazines, and engage the reader,
to re-create a feeling of abjection, a loss of a sense of
self.
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on negotiating his delicate nether regions take it slow
experiment with just touching the anal opening and
using a finger or small plug before you graduate to
dildos and strap-on sex if he’s concerned it’s only for
gay men it’s not the case not all gay men like it
(Cosmopolitan Magazine Poem 1)
E. The medical receptionist
Verbal and written communication hello surname
please professional and caring manner your Medicare
card please ability to multitask medical clinic hold
please medical reception experience in a general
practice medical clinic hold please answering of phones
sorry to keep you waiting how can I help you booking
of appointments I’m sorry that doctor is not available
until next week meeting and greeting patients hello
sir billing and receipting you will get $36.30 back on
that would you like me to claim for you now scheduling
follow up appointments I’m sorry that is the next
available time is it an urgent matter can I put you on a
cancellation list keeping cool under pressure oh you’re
bleeding from where how much stay back as and when
required I’m sorry the doctor is a bit behind it is about
a forty five minute wait medical clinic hold please
(Position Vacant)
In exploring the collapse of self and other in the
waiting room in relation to my experience as a medical
receptionist, I was struck by how the receptionist
herself experiences a loss of self. As the above
satirical take on a job advertisement suggests, a
medical receptionists works in breathless, self-less
chaos. It is different to other “regular” office jobs as
business is never “bad”. It is also a job that revolves
around people’s bodies, you need to be quick with a
vomit bag.
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Time For Coffee
you would think she was a Jew a cute Asian baby just
like a little monkey I hope my daughter is not over
six foot do you think he had a panic attack because
he’s gay she is so rude so pushy really you don’t make
Indian food but you’re Indian I saw A Current Affair
last night
(From Colleagues)
In considering the medical receptionist in
light of Kristeva’s theory of the abject, she can be
conceptualised as a liminal figure, as abject herself.
She is a conduit between doctor and patient, she is
neither subject nor object in the process of medical
care. She is often privy to gory details about people’s
bodies. However, as the “unskilled” receptionist, she
deals with patients and their bodies in a transitionary,
superficial manner. She facilitates their appointments,
their messages, their breathless panic when they think
something is an emergency (for the record, if you did
not drop dead upon eating a roast chicken that still had
the absorbent pad from the supermarket on it after you
pull it from the oven, you will probably be fine).
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push back
smash
the printer
be still silent
look left receptionist (f, 65 yo)
bright
no cords or cables
one paper copy of
White Pages
Business Listing
the phones ring the phones the phones the phones the
phones
To express the liminality of the medical
receptionist, I composed a piece Time for Coffee
that visually and linguistically explores her “stuck”
position within the waiting room, between colleagues
and the patients. Each receptionist is “stuck” to her
side of the desk, and in the case of the younger one, on
the right, she is also trapped by the printer.
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I cannot possibly come in because I have to work do
you really need to come in to get a medical certificate
just ask the doctor if he will write me one can you
please ask for repeats on panadeine forte I take a lot
of them and we are going to the snow today he needs to
have his haemorrhoid removed today yes it is urgent I
have run out of Viagra or what is it called the hepatitis
C vaccine no there was definitely a pea up his nose
(From Patients)
To further explore the abjection of the medical
receptionist, I composed pieces in a stream of
conscious-style free prose. These pieces are
collections of statements I have heard from patients
and colleagues at the front desk. These are amongst
my most vivid (and not necessarily fondest) memories.
This style is inspired by the poetry of Ania Walwiz.
Jessica Wilkinson notes that Walwicz’ writing is
characterised by “fluidity and stream-of consciousness
style” (Rabbit 7 113). Ania Walwiz writes powerful,
spirited language, about themes of “alienation,
subordination, dislocation and loss of language
(Wilkinson Rabbit 7 112).
In an interview conducted by Rabbit Poetry
7, Walwicz says that language “is a liberation
and an act of play in its pure form. And freedom
from restriction” (Wilkinson 129). I relished the
opportunity to explore my experience as a medical
receptionist. I wanted to “play” with some of the
ridiculous things that I have been subject to as a
receptionist (by patients and by fellow receptionists).
Through this I wanted to explore how the “I” of the
receptionist is subjugated. I wanted to “liberate”
the medical receptionist through exploring her
abjection. As these pieces are read, there is real sense
of the “other”, nothingness, threatening to crush the
receptionist.
Oh hello I need your help he needs to see a doctor now
it’s an emergency (PANIC) because he needs to see a
surgeon to get the haemorrhoid removed (OH) because
we are driving to the snow today and he can’t sit down
(NOT AN EMERGENCY)
all writing is pigshit antonin artaud writes that all
writing is pigshit une merde de cochon schweinerei
schweinhund arschgesicht swinstwo swinia pig like a
pig poo poo p that is what it is that is what you read yes
they …
(Ania Walwicz All Writing Is Pigshit no pp)
Lucy Fitzpatrick
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75
Lucy Fitzpatrick
Lucies.indd 74-75
Exegesis
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77
VI: CONCLUSION
When I decided to explore the medical waiting
room poetically, I thought that I would draw upon my
observations of various “characters” I had encountered
over the years, and their quirks. In some ways, I
envisaged a “revenge” piece after years of “silence”
behind the desk, where I could expose how “annoying”
the patients can be.
However, upon consideration I found it far more
interesting and meaningful to look beyond myself (so
surprising), to explore why the waiting room is such
an uncomfortable space for those within. Instead, I
examined the space of the waiting room, and my role
in it as medical receptionist, in light of Kristeva’s
theory of the abject.
Abjection: A Guide to the Medical Waiting Room
uses a number of poetic techniques and forms to
represent and explore abjection. These include the
“ruptured sonnet”, stream of conscious style prose
poetry, soundscapes and the re-contextualisation of
material found in the waiting room.
the stable self in relation to abjection and language.
Poetry has provided a way to express the abject in the
waiting room by, in Kristevean terms, destabilising the
symbolic order of language to find the semiotic chora
that lurks beneath.
Abjection embraces all the uncomfortable feelings
that we try to deny as we sit politely in the waiting
room. It pierces our social veil, as well as the veil of
the unified “I”. This is in terms of the lyric voice of
poetry, as well as the notion that we are discreet beings
impervious to those around us.
I feel I was able to “write abjection”. This is in
terms of my experience of abjection in the waiting
room, as both patient and medical receptionist.
Conceptually, Abjection has found the abjection
in the waiting room, that simmers underneath our
polite social behaviour. I now invite you to read, and
experience, Abjection: A Guide to the Medical Waiting
Room.
As well as exploring my experience of abjection in
the waiting room, I was able to consider the nature of
Lucy Fitzpatrick
Lucies.indd 76-77
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78
79
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Figure 1: Myts
Figure 2: Jasmin
Figure 3: Crystal
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Figure 5: Sharadpunita
Figure 6: Pjplog
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Lucy Fitzpatrick
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Lucy Fitzpatrick
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