Seasteading: Entrepreneurial Opportunities

Tana Jean Welch

on the sea they might sell fishto passers-by on boats                     or they might sell fishto other likeminded people afloat                    on the floating city the word selfish is seventeenth-centuryPresbyterian, first usedin reference to the events of the year 1641which could be any numberof events, including but not limited tothe Iroquois declaring war against New France,the Dutch seizure of Malacca                    (or the Dutch capture of Angola)or the Irish Rebellion in Ulsterself-ful, self-ended, self-seeking:synonyms used during the Early Modern Erahow else to sell fish?                    freeze, pack, ship                                        (no need to heed the regulations)                    string a metal needle                                        through the eyes, brine                                        hang dry and vacuum packor they might not sell it at allbut fry it on a Friday,                    swallow as much as they canand bury the rest at sea

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Headshot of Tana Jean Welch

Tana Jean Welch is the author of the poetry collections In Parachutes Descending (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) and Latest Volcano (Marsh Hawk Press, 2016). Her poetry has appeared in The New York Times, and in journals including The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and The Colorado Review. Her critical analysis of poetry and medicine, Advancing Medical Posthumanism through Twenty-First Century American Poetry (Palgrave, 2024), places contemporary poetics in dialogue with biomedicine in order to create a framework for a posthuman affirmative ethics within the culture of healthcare. As both a poet and a scholar, Welch is interested in how poetry can encourage us to think both critically and inclusively about our bodily entanglements—the complexity of our physical relationships. Born and raised in Fresno, California, she currently lives in Tallahassee where she is Associate Professor of Medical Humanities at the Florida State University College of Medicine.

Cover of In Parachutes Descending

"Tana Jean Welch’s In Parachutes Descending is a palimpsest oscillating between lovers and coastlines, backlit by the tragic absurdities of the Anthropocene. These poems are a ship’s log of geographical losses and ecstasies, an erotic map of floating cities orbited by flesh-eating mermaids, soiled grand pianos, and every form of bare infinitive."
—Simeon Berry

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