Scientific Researcher Inventory (SRI: ~2004--not standardized) (Clara B. Jones)

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHER INVENTORY (SRI)

 Clara B. Jones, Ph.D.

Age________ Gender (circle one): M F Classification (circle one): Soph Jr Sr

Race___________Major:___________________________________GPA___________

Read each characteristic of a scientific researcher and place a score from the scale in the right-hand column indicating how representative the characteristic is of you, employing the scale from 0 (Strongly Disagree) – 9 (Strongly Agree). All results will be summarized and treated anonymously.

Characteristic 0. Strongly Disagree, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Strongly Agree		Score
1	I can focus on and/or persist at a task for very long periods of time without interruption.
2	I can compartmentalize tasks (e.g., prioritize, sequence, and break down large, complex tasks into manageable components).
3	I do not get bored easily.
4	I am not overly dependent upon high levels of stimulation.
5	I am more of a “task oriented” person than a “people person”.
6	I am more dependent upon internal motivation than external motivation for getting things done.
7	I can provide my own reinforcement/reward for doing a job well.
8	I am not particularly dependent upon receiving others’ approval.
9	I pay close attention to detail.
10	I don’t make a lot of mistakes.
11	I know where I want to be in 5 years.
12	I have a career plan.
13	I think of the glass as being “half full” rather than “half empty”.
14	I know how to turn a negative into a neutral or a positive most of the time.
15	I am willing to travel away from home for graduate school and other opportunities.
16	I am able and willing to take intellectual risks (e.g., to think creatively).
17	My thinking is flexible, not rigid.
18	I have very good “time management” skills.
19	I have very good organizational skills.
20	I make good choices.
21	I am a “go-getter”, confident but not cocky.
22	I assume personal responsibility for outcomes and do not blame others.
23	After a disappointment, I recover quickly. In other words, I am “resilient”.
24	After a disappointment, I “get back on the horse” (i.e., I continue a project or task and do not abandon it).
25	If one option does not work, I can “switch” to another one.
26	I am more realistic than idealistic.
27	I am creative.
28	I can “play by the rules”.
29	I am a perfectionist.
30	I respect both intuition (e.g., “a feel for the organism”) and cognition (e.g., rational problem-solving), and I know the difference.
31	I know that personal opinion is not fact.
32	I am comfortable with delayed reward.
33	I demonstrate very good impulse control.
34	I am a good “team player”.
35	I can lead or follow, depending upon what the situation calls for.
36	I am driven more by research ideas and questions than by making money.
37	I have very good reading comprehension skills.
38	I have very good writing skills.
39	My thinking strategies are efficient.
40	I am not afraid of success.
41	I make statements that can be supported by evidence.
42	I am well prepared in mathematics, computer science, logic, statistics, and science.
43	I am highly motivated to be a biomedical researcher.
44	When I was growing up, I had a role model or a mentor who was a scientific researcher.
45	I currently have a role model or a mentor who is a scientific researcher.
46	I can afford the financial costs associated with applying to graduate school.
47	I have had theoretical and/or empirical research experience.
48	I am willing to work without monetary compensation in order to obtain research experience.
49	I am not a procrastinator.
50	I am not a person who tries to “get over” or to change or override rules.
51	I am willing to invest my own resources in my career.
52	I manage stress well.
53	I am not fearful of people who are different from myself.
54	I have friends who are different from myself.
55	I can focus on a single task without multitasking.
56	I am not threatened or defensive if the facts are contrary to my personal beliefs.
57	I can modify my personal beliefs in the face of empirical and compelling evidence to the contrary.
58	I am objective.
59	I am not afraid of failure.
60	I have people in my life who support my decision to have a career in scientific research.
61	I am “passionate” about an area and/or a set of questions related to scientific biomedical research.

Review of les echiquiers effrontes by Mark Young (by Clara B. Jones)

les échiquiers effrontés

Mark Young

2018

Luna Bisonte Prods

$16.00

27 pp

Review by Clara B. Jones*

“Derrida, of course is the primary proponent of bricolage which, more than anything else, is the term I would use to best describe my poetry.” Mark Young

Mark Young's new collection is an experimental work. Many articles and books have attempted to answer the question, “What does 'experimental literature' mean?” The Russian Formalist, Viktor Shklovsky, proposed that experimental art is a technical “device for making strange” and that experimental writing draws “attention to the use of common language in such a way as to alter one's [sensation and] perception of an easily understandable object or concept.” I hesitate to categorize les échiquiers effrontés out of respect for the subjective and improvisational process employed in its creation. Here, I intend to share my own reading of the text rather than attempt to decipher any intent or message on the author's part.

Mark Young is a highly-regarded writer living in Australia who has produced dozens of books. He has been featured in jacket 2 and other venues, as well as, by the Poetry Foundation. Editor of the online journal, Otoliths, Young promotes innovative poetry, visual poetry [“vispo”], and artwork. The improvisational meters and rhythms of jazz characterize Young's work, and William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, Ursula Le Guin, and Jorge Luis Borges are among his literary influences. On the back cover of les échiquiers effrontés, the author provides a prose poem about his inspiration for the book: “[Marcel] Duchamp's Nude came eddying down the staircase carrying a chessboard and some sort of dictionary. 'Your move,' she said.”...“I never won again. A readymade Mark, he called me.” The book has been summarized as “conceptual and surrealist visual poetry constructed on chessboard grids,” and, by highlighting Duchamp's Surrealism, Young makes clear that his collection is a product of unconscious processes.

Chessboards constitute the dominant element of the book, providing coherence and unification of 24 visual texts, in addition to, one erased quote (by the military officer [cum strategist] and writer, François de La Rochefoucauld) and two visual devices—one based on a poem by artist-poet-sculptor, Hans Arp (p 15) and, the other, a reworking of one detail of the painting, “Mona Lisa” (p 27). A chessboard is an 8 x 8 grid of squares upon which two persons play a game of strategy to “checkmate” an opponent's King. In the abstract, the board may be viewed as a map or table and the squares as fields or cells, respectively. Young positions words, images, memes, photographs, or other visuals in cells that can stand alone or in relation to one another. Similarly, each chessboard can relate to others—or, not—enhancing imagination, playfulness, and complexity. The chessboard, also, can be divided into strips or diagonals, permitting additional visual, interpretive, or other, permutations. Individual images may repeat in one or another way. Nelson Mandela, for instance, is mentioned in Young's prose poem, and the politician's photograph appears in a cell on page 16. Repetition, most notably associated with Gertrude Stein's writing, is a common hallmark of experimental literature.

Close “reading” of les échiquiers effrontés reveals multiple layers and scales. One might view each chessboard as a table with mathematical qualities since each cell [square] has a numerical identity. Thus, the upper left-hand square can be quantified as, Row 1, Column 1, and so on. Also, cells surrounding images may be viewed as frames, just as the chessboard, itself, frames the complete composition which is, in effect, a construction of pictures within pictures. Variation and flexibility characterize the text, surrendering freedom of interpretation to the reader, as all Postmodern creations do.

Titles may or may not relate to particular grids. Often, a title repeats words in corner squares. In a few cases, titles appear to have no relation to the compositions to which they refer. Young's inclination to uncouple titles and works is a convention that seems designed to give each component singularity or authority on its own, without interdependence. An interesting feature of the elements superimposed (seemingly at random) upon squares is that, in addition to the colors themselves, many have multiple meanings. For example, “Persephone” is both Queen of the Underworld, as well as, an analogue synthesizer. Similarly, “sigil,” a word used in Young's prose poem, is a symbol, sign, or seal and an e-book editor. “SMURF” is a comic character, as well as, a symbol of freedom. Duchamp is a chess player and an artist. The symbolic importance of Duchamp to les échiquiers effrontés cannot be overestimated since the Surrealist-as-chess player is a strategist as was La Rochefoucauld, and, like Young, an artist who minimized the boundaries between art and life.

Young joins a long tradition of artists employing the chessboard in visual, or, in this case, vispo, works, generally, in depictions of opponents playing the game. Used as an avant garde device, however, the chessboard has a Cubist quality seen most famously in the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky (e.g., Compositions X and XIII, “Decisive Pink,” “Continuous Line,” and “Small Dream in Red”). Young's inventiveness is apparent in each component of les échiquiers effrontés, as well as, throughout the book as a whole. This collection is a tour de force demonstrating that his reputation as a noteworthy innovator is well deserved. I am eager to experience where Young's imagination and compositional abilities take us next.

*Published January 2019 in Entropy

Review of At Your Feet by Ana Cristina Cesar (Review by Clara B. Jones)

At Your Feet

Ana Cristina César

Katrina Dodson, Ed.

Brenda Hillman, Helen Hillman, & Sebastião Edson Macedo (translators)

2018

Parlor Press

$14.00

103 pp

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones experimenting with book review form...*

“In literature, it is only the wild that attracts us.” Henry David Thoreau

Who is the author? Ana Cristina César (1952-1983, suicide*) was active in Brazil during the 1970s. Her work has been categorized as avant garde, a term usually reserved for visual artists and writers who are active politically, usually, in leftist groups or movements. According to Brenda Hillman, César was born and raised in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, in a religious, middle-class family. Conducting research on “Ana C,” as the poet was called in her circle and among her followers, I did not discover that her formative years were marked by trauma or dysfunction. However, in an academic paper, Lúcia Villares (1997, Portuguese Studies 13, pp 108-123) reported that the 1970s in Brazil were preceded by military coups (in 1964 & 1968), leading to the isolation, exclusion, and suppression of radicals, activists, intellectuals, and the middle-class.

In response to these measures, strikes and demonstrations were carried out against the military regime which countered the actions with increased repression—especially of the middle-class, including, censorship, seizure of books, attacks on left-wing publishers, among other interventions. César and her circle of poets formed a group, “geração Marginal” (“the marginal generation”) that published and sold chapbooks and books independent of commercial publishing houses and distributors. The marginal (marginalized) poets advanced a view of a fragmented world in which the power of language was reduced. These oppositional writers expressed their sense of impotence, in part, by emphasizing their communal efforts and by asserting themselves as survivors in a hostile environment.

Through her writing, “Ana C” identified with the “poesia feminina” movement in Brazil, part of the opposition supporting women's search for identity and voice. This group held that to be a woman was to be “desdobráve”—a woman capable of transforming herself. Consistent with this background, César's poetry is in general, fragmented and written in collage style, mostly, dispensing with meter, rhythm, music, and lyric, though her pieces are infused with vivid image and color. The reader of At Your Feet may find that poems seem to increase in complexity, self-confidence, and clarity from beginning to end; though, according to Hillman, there is no evidence that César's poems were arranged chronologically. Though I am not qualified to say, the translations appear to be excellent; at least, I found them rich with artful language. After a tour of the continent, César returned to Rio, jumping out of a window in her parents' home not long after.

What is At Your Feet about? The book is a collection of intense poems, mostly about bad or failed relationships with men, as well as their associated emotions and feelings. Also, the book's title suggests subservience. Thus, for example, “I went on the attack: it's now, sweet-/heart, in a car going up in flames,...in the early dawn, because of you and furious: it's now, against this traffic....” (p 19). The author seems driven to make sense of things—with men, with herself; though, there is no mention of political unrest except in the sense that the poems, themselves, may be viewed as oppositional—against the military regime, against traditional mores, and against conventional literary practices and criteria. The primary subject-matter seems contradictory to her reputation as a feminist and her documented identification with women and feminism. For example, she relies upon many female stereotypes (e.g., lovestruck, hysterical, silly) and expresses negative emotions toward other females (e.g., they arouse jealousy or are viewed as intruders: “that total bitch/of a woman”, p 77).

Nevertheless, one of César's stated goals was to become assertive, authentic, and outspoken, rather than, a passive and suppressed woman. Thus, her bold expressions of emotional vulnerability may be viewed as attempts to be radically, unabashedly honest (“Let's have afternoon tea and I'll tell you my big passionate story, which I've kept under lock and key, and my heart beats out of sync while we eat gaufrettes...I'm touched by fire.” (p 11); “Call again tomorrow/no matter what.” (p 17); “Without you, I'm really a lake, a mountain./I think of a man named Herberto./...And without bravado, sweetheart, I raise the price.” (p 33). On the other hand, a few of the poems demonstrate moments of assertion and agency (see, for instance, “Final Fire,” p 89), but the intention seems never to be sustained. Ultimately, this collection is about a young woman searching for her own voice, her own agency, and her own will, as well as, the ability to resist socialization and circumstance.

Formal Structure: As mentioned, the poems in At Your Feet, are fragmented, like the political landscape within which César found herself and like her own psychological makeup. Thus, her classification with the avant garde is warranted by the innovative nature of her forms, matching her content. As well, many of her poems appear without titles (a type of erasure?; a silent, “Untitled”?), a convention sometimes used by the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet, Susan Howe.

César's work seems to align with the movement, Surrealism, since many of her poems exhibit “automatism,” sometimes, by way of, impulsiveness (but, “My boy. It's not automatism. I swear. It's jazz from the heart.”, p 41) and the mining of unconscious processes (“Poetry doesn't—telegraphic—occasional—/leave me solo—loose—/at the mercy of the impossible—/—of the real.”, p 47). The collection includes prose poems and an interesting list poem (“Onomastic Index,” p 93) that includes the names of at least two famous females who died tragically. Structurally, many of the poems might be classified as “fragments”—a single or a few lines. In keeping with a fragmented identity, voice, and form (Post-modernism?), most of these poems are cynical, self-absorbed, emotional, or detached, or are about “boredom” (p 85) or “illness” (81) or victimization (p 83) or hysteria (p 19). Thus, as a whole, the poems' forms are consistent with their meanings and themes—as defined and expressed by the author.

Conclusion: In the final analysis, César's collection shows the work of a young poet without the ability to see herself through an objective lens. As Marjorie Perloff has stated, a mature poet has the ability to see the humor in themselves [sic], something lacking from At Your Feet. It is a cliché to point out that one would like to see how this writer might have developed over a long, productive career. Without this option, one must view the collection's value primarily in relation to the socio-political atmosphere in which it was written. In addition, the poet's work is interesting as an example of a “young adult” sub-genre, and critics could mine the volume for what it tells us about the challenges of early adulthood, particularly, about the development and maturation of females who succumb to suicide when relatively young. Hopefully, César's complete body of work will become available in translation at a future date. Combined with At Your Feet, the poet's writings could become a valuable resource for those interested in avant garde beyond the United States and Europe. I recommend this book because it is a very interesting and enjoyable read. Indeed, despite its limitations, I was unable to put the book down once I began to read it because César took me, and will take you, on an intense “joy- ride”—on an emotional roller-coaster that you will enjoy (see Epigram).

*Note: César's fate brings to mind two other young female artists who jumped out of windows to end their lives: photographer, Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) and poet, Elise Cowen (1933-1962), both Americans. One of my motivations for writing this review is the hope that a reader who is an academic or critic will conduct research on these cases—or, pass the possible project on to someone. Based upon my own limited knowledge, there appear to be some similarities among the women's trajectories. For instance, both César and Cowen jumped out of windows at the homes of their parents, and César and Woodman both traveled in Europe before they took their own lives. Further, all three of these women may have experienced an increased measure of popularity—as well as, disillusionment?—before they killed themselves. I think, though I am not certain, that this apparently contradictory pattern is common among suicides. (My contact: foucault03@gmail.com)

*Published January 2019 in i am not a silent poet

Review of Sleeping Things by Holly Iglesias (Clara B. Jones)

Sleeping Things

Holly Iglesias

2018

Press53

$14.95

83 pp

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones*

Holly Iglesias is a prose poet, a critic, a translator (Spanish), an educator specializing in documentary and archival poetry, a feminist, a lesbian, a traveler, a recipient of fellowships and awards, as well as, a member of the Cuban diaspora in the United States. As her poems attest, she has a strong sense of memory and place, in addition to, an abiding concern for the status and welfare of children and women. Sleeping Things (2018), her third full-length collection, includes poems highlighting her thesis, advanced in her critical essay, Boxing Inside The Box (Quale Press, 2004), that the prose poem, a form of ancient origin, symbolizes the constraints borne by women [all oppressed groups?] boxed into bedrooms, kitchens, churches, bodies—literally, figuratively, and psychologically: “Oh, victim soul, don't bite back. Instead, sink deeper/and deeper into the bed, into sheets thin as pity, pillows/flattened by the weight of piety.” (p 18, Sleeping Things); “Mother is the superior of our kitchen, her habit an/ apron.” (p 20). I first met Iglesias after a reading in a bar, Crow & Quill, in Asheville, NC (p 69), filled with a group of her dedicated admirers, with whom I soon identified. In past, I have reviewed a few of the author's books and am pleased to have the opportunity to do so again.

Sleeping Things, a volume in three parts, is titled and introduced by Federico García Lorca's words, a poet referenced elsewhere in Iglesias' writings. Clearly, she has been influenced by Lorca's Surrealism (“automatism,” unconscious processes: “ A Child's Book of Knowledge...”, pp 14-15, 21; “Remote Control”, p. 26) and his “deep song” form (“The body sojourns but briefly in the material world...”, p 4; “The grandeur of possibilities soothed/my shame. Should I stand shoeless for days in Alpine/snow...?”, p 24). Part I of Iglesias' new, handsomely crafted and illustrated, book, presents poems with multiple layers of significance, demonstrating the ways in which her childhood experiences, musings, and recollections relate to historical and current events documenting the author's routes to an awakening of socio-political consciousness: “We were a system, a sociology, a discipline of black/and white, its strictures softened by Gregorian chant/and myrrh, by the nuns pacing left and right [sic] as they/tapped the maps with a flourish—Holy Roman Empire,/Barbarian Invasions, Counter-Reformation.” (p 7). The poet's vivid historical, psychological, spiritual, and metaphorical tapestries reveal her ongoing interest in causal, situational, interconnected, as well as, multi-level memory, time, place, relationships, and identity inherent to personal, local, regional, national, and international domains (see, for example, “Hit Parade”, p 27).

Part II of Sleeping Things reprints poems from her chapbook, Fruta Bomba [tr. Papaya or female genitalia; Making Her Mark Press, 2015]. Although, Iglesias may be viewed as a “political” writer, these poems, like others throughout the book, demonstrate her lyrical, intimate style transcending sociology, literalness, and didacticism: “No words precede the reef, none follow. Only sea fans,/brain coral, clouds above the surface. Glint of sun, of/barracuda and baitfish in flight, the Gulf Stream/sweeping by, squeezing between Florida and Cuba....” (p 31). Iglesias often refers to events in Cuba, Miami, and St. Louis, especially, the physical and emotional distances between these places, as well as, other locations. Her poems about tropical areas authentically reflect their sensuousness—color- passion-soul (components of Lorca's duende), exoticism, mystery, and, sometimes, the potential for violence (“The boy, crying, clutches the neck of his rescuer as a/federal agent in riot gear yanks him away.” (p 44). Though Iglesias has clearly renounced the [optimistic] Modernism characteristic of José Martí and Lorca, the poems in Sleeping Things are not depressing or nihilistic. They reflect, rather, an awareness of the complexities and contradictions of the post-World War II political landscape, refusing to advance unifying solutions, as the Modernists did (e.g., Science, Psychoanalysis, Communism). Nonetheless, each section of this book demonstrates that Iglesias' compositions are part of the experimental tradition, particularly, in their forms (e.g., pp 14-15, 17, 21, 42, 45, 56).

Part III is, in my opinion, the strongest section of the book, in part, because it highlights Iglesias' strengths with words—double-meanings, word-parings, complete sentences, as well as, whole poems. Many titles, for example, are playful conceits (e.g., “Lobal Warfare,” “Uncivil War...,” “The Game of Crones”). Also, my favorite line in the volume occurs in Part III (p 60): “It was still life [sic] after she'd gone—hair in the brush,/scented talc, the impress [sic] of her younger self in the/cushions of the couch.” Further, the most lyrical, metaphorical, and imagistic poems can be found in this part: “The first time I saw the Mississippi from the air,/I knew my place, and I knew that home was a sinuous/ribbon lacing east to west, past to future, bondage to/possibility, appearing and disappearing like a snake in/new-mown hay as the sun flashed on its surface.” (p 51). In my experience, music and meter, Formalist criteria, do not often characterize contemporary prose poems; yet, Iglesias achieves these heights over and over again. Sleeping Things contains some of the most beautiful prose poems I have ever read.

Reflecting upon Iglesias' body of work leads me to recall Louise Bogan's line: “Women have no wilderness in them; they are provident, instead.” I wonder whether Bogan and Iglesias, are underestimating women and other oppressed or suppressed groups—their capacities for change, transformation, as well as, agency? Having said that, I think the reader will agree that many of the compositions in Sleeping Things are noteworthy, deserving a wide audience. Among feminist poets writing today, Holly Iglesias is one of my favorites, and, if her canon were larger, she would certainly deserve critical attention relative to Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, and Elizabeth Bishop. Iglesias' compositions are mature examples of the prose poem sub-genre, and, at their best, the writings stun in their ability to combine “color” with theme (additional Formalist criteria). I have learned a lot about style and metaphor from studying Iglesias' project, and I am always left hungry for more after reading her books. Absorbing Sleeping Things was a pleasure to experience, and I highly recommend this significant collection to anyone interested in compelling innovative literature.

*Published in PANK Magazine Blog, January 2019, online

Review of The Word Factory by Mark Young (Clara B. Jones)

The Word Factory: a miscellany

Mark Young

2018

gradient books (Finland)

Available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/gradientbooks

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones taking a journey on the path of experimental book reviewing*...

“There exists no science of word creation” Velimir Khlebnikov

Author: Mark Young is an internationally recognized writer and publisher of the poetry journal, Otoliths, who has produced dozens of books and has been featured in jacket2 and by the Poetry Foundation. He lives in Australia.

What is The Word Factory about? From the author: “A strange mix, a miscellany as the subtitle says. Some pieces written during & about the George W. Bush presidency; the Allegrezza translations; prose works that investigate the landscape where the writing takes place; poems that don't fit elsewhere. All put together to try & hold up a night sky, to give it faint stars & distant constellations.”

Formal structure:

Arrangement: various textual forms in four parts—

1. “Bush Tucker”: “Because he had experienced neither, President Bush confused the word/poetry and poverty./He said:/Many in our country do not know the pain of poetry, but we can listen/to those who do.” (p 16)
2. “some translations by Umberto Allegrezza”: “Alexander/came and Tyre fell; &/later on the Greeks,/rats gnawing away/at what was left.” (p 33)
3. “Odds and Sods”: “tomorrow/i begin my/studies to/become a/transplant surgeon/the day/after that/i take my/finals exam/it's a series/of multiple/choice/questions—/much easier/for the/tutors to/mark—” (p 53)
4. “The Word Factory”: “At 1.27 p.m. a directive comes down from Management. The remainder of/the afternoon will be spent putting together a new word, two words/actually, both without n, to build up stocks for the projected rush on them./I finish off my shift using my dots to complete the exclamation marks that/our Marketing people believe will be a much in demand accessory to/accompany Global Catastrophe.” (p 67)

Features: form (various textual forms); content/theme/subject (various); meter/rhyme (various, including, improvisational, free verse); style (playful, eclectic, innovative; stabilizing & destabilizing at the same time); technique (“defamiliarization”; “Art as device for making strange”: Viktor Shklovsky)

Poetic sub-genres: conventional (p 17); vispo (p 45); erasure (p 47); prose (p 50); mixed (p 51); list (p 63); flash fiction (p 82)

Theories behind text: Modernism, PoMo

Conclusion: Read this book if you want to know the mystery of a shooting star or of a treasure hunt through enchanted forests of entities both autonomous and whole embedded in real and imagined worlds. This noteworthy book is a happening. Go along for the ride. It is a unique and worthy experience.

*Published in The Curly Mind, 12/2018

Monetizing Poetry [this proposal is a (tentative) work/idea in progress] (Clara B. Jones)

To: Whom it may concern

From: Clara B. Jones*

Knowledge Worker

929 Bonifant Street, Apt. 512

Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA

Cell: (828) 279-4429

E-mail: foucault03@gmail.com

Re: Proposal to create a market for Poetry via the visual arts gallery network, as well as, to monetize and to create a market for Poetry comparable to the visual arts market intended, in part, to enhance poets' income from their creative work, to widen Poetry's influence and impact, as well as, to broaden the range of artforms represented by a given gallery.

Date: 12/16/2018 [revised, 1/14/19]

Visual arts as an industry: Much has been written about the national and international monetization and commodification of the visual arts in America created by the influence of buyers, sellers, 3^rd parties, such as, representatives, the media, galleries & museums, critics (academics and non-academics), artists and their agents, as well as, other entities. Visual arts networks, in aggregate, have become an industry driven by economic forces yielding the potential to “make or break” artists' careers, as well as, for the potential for individual artists to earn significant income and exposure from their creations.

Herein, I propose that...

...a given poet will, by contract, agree to print, frame, sign, date, and number a limited series of poems (1/1 to N/N) that will be professionally framed, represented by, and marketed by a given art gallery for a price agreed upon by gallery owner or representative. Mode of presentation of the printed, framed, signed, dated, and numbered poem would constitute a category of Radical Publishing. For example, to suggest a few conventions that could be employed, the poet might combine the poem with other visual art or features, such as, artwork, varied fonts, font sizes, and/or colors. Or, creating an object potentially of value to and attractive to gallery owners or their representatives, poets might be expected to collaborate with visual artists to create an object comparable to "text art," prints, engravings, woodcuts, and the like, the difference being that the text would be an original poem presented as a single work or as one copy in a limited series.

By contract beneficial to both entities, a given gallery would have exclusive rights to represent, to display, and to sell the poet's creation(s) and to market his/her/their printed, framed, signed, dated, and numbered poem which, in effect, would be characterized and treated as a work of visual art similar in sub-genres to text art, prints, engravings, woodcuts, and the like. Also, by contract, poet and gallery owner (or, representative) could agree upon series number (from 1/1 to n/N) and other pertinent details (e.g., price of artwork, advertising, duration of contract, handling of product after termination of contract, terms of copyright, etc.).

Consequences for the poetry community, its networks, and galleries: Clearly, no poet would be obligated to participate in the marketing strategy proposed herein. However, if the strategy is even marginally successful, advantages (stream of income, incentive for poetry journals to pay poets, increased status of Poetry among the Arts and in public) should obtain to poets using this strategy. Poems not under contract could be published in traditional ways. The gallery would be expected to benefit in ways comparable to what is gained by showing any other work of Art.

*Feedback is solicited about the clarity, desirability, and feasibility of this proposal, or, about any other matters of concern (see contact information above).

Review of Mammal Societies by Tim Clutton-Brock (Clara B. Jones)

Mammal Societies*

Tim Clutton-Brock

2016

Wiley-Blackwell (Oxford, UK)

744 pp

ISBN 97811119095323

“The key to the sociobiology of mammals is milk.” E.O. Wilson (1975)

Knowledge about group-living mammals may contribute to an understanding of vertebrate social evolution and the evolution of gregariousness in animals with generalized phenotypes. Compared to social insects and birds, the social biology of mammals is poorly known with the exception of ungulates, carnivores, and primates (3 of ~25 Orders). In 2011, Ladevèze et al. reported fossil evidence documenting mammalian gregariousness and its associated ecology from the basal Tertiary of Bolivia. These findings suggested that extinct, marsupial-like Pucadelphys andinus were group-living, probably exhibiting frequent interactions, strong sexual dimorphism, and male-male competition, as well as, polygyny. Based on the spatial and ecological settings of their specimens, these authors speculated that the species may have been cooperative breeders. In 2012, based on a phylogenetic analysis, Briga et al. showed that relatedness and allomaternal¹ care are positively correlated in Class Mammalia. These papers indicate that, though the population dispersion of most extant mammals is sexually segregated (“solitary”), group-living has a long history in these animals.

Tim Clutton-Brock (henceforth, “TC-B”) is a highly-regarded empiricist at the University of Cambridge (UK), recognized, particularly, for his field studies on primates, red deer, and meerkats. He is a prolific scientist with a knack for asking good questions and choosing animal models that have yielded flagship research. The author will be familiar to most animal behaviorists and behavioral ecologists as a specialist of cooperative breeding and evolutionary aspects of reproduction (e.g., female mating strategies, sexual selection). In the book under review, TC-B notes that his undergraduate training was in Anthropology and that he completed his doctorate under Robert Hinde, an animal behaviorist that Psychology typically claims as one of its own. I have been familiar with TC-B's work since the 1970s, and my personal favorites among his copious publications are his 1995 paper with Geoff Parker and the 2003 volume edited with R.M. Sibley & J. Hone. I am pleased to have the opportunity to review Mammal Societies, and, as a point of information, admit to having no “bones to pick” with its author. I have interacted with TC-B on several occasions, once face-to-face, and, more than once, via e-mail. He has always been generous and courteous to me. In this review, I do not intend to deconstruct, to question the book's authority, or to impose my biases. Instead, I hope to provide a context for its readers, particularly, mammalian social biologists, to decide on their own its scope and utility.

Previous books by JH Crook, “Griff” Ewer, J Eisenberg, EO Wilson, R Estes, D MacDonald, CB Jones, and others, have treated mammalian social biology to one degree or another. Mammal Societies, however, is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive literature review of the topic. The publisher's description of the volume states that it is intended for “behavioral ecologists, ecologists, and anthropologists,” and TC-B self-identifies as a “behavioral ecologist.” The book is, to all purposes, a literature review of selected Natural History reports emphasizing publications by his own laboratory, by primatologists, and from the Old World. Of an estimated 5,300 references cited in the book under review, only 64 [THIS NUMBER IS INCORRECT--corrected in next issue of ISBE Newsletter] derive from mainstream journals in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (N= 15 journals, including, Trends In Ecology and Evolution, American Naturalist, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Journal of Evolutionary Biology). While the Table of Contents presents a detailed outline of topics of interest to social biologists, there is little integration of technical reports with ecology and evolution. Furthermore, the sheer number of topics covered is so large that little space is devoted to most of them. To provide context, professors using Mammal Societies as a course textbook or reference work are strongly advised to acquaint their students early on with Wilson's (1975) treatment of the same topic (pp 456-574) presenting an explicitly articulated conceptual framework for mammalian social biology, including, trends, general and comparative features, an extensive glossary, as well as, case studies and summary tables, figures, and diagrams.

Chapter 1, “Social evolution,” omits definitions of terms (e.g., “aggregation,” “social”, “cooperation”), leading to obfuscation throughout the book, particularly, since there is no discussion of how to measure social traits (cooperation, altruism) and to discuss their pertinence to reproductive success. In this chapter, the author might have defined “Mammal” and should tell the reader why mammalian social biology is of import. The reader will want to understand possible trajectories to cooperation and altruism from aggregations and groups and how the (spatial and temporal) distribution of limiting resources favor or disfavor the evolution of mammalian sociality. Chapter 1 is, in great part, a selective account of the history of Animal Behavior combined with some mention of theoretical issues (e.g., Darwinism, competition, reciprocity, game theory). However, for rigorous discussions of verbal and quantitative theory in Behavioral Ecology, as well as, overviews of Methods and G x E interactions, readers are referred to Davies et al. (2012) and Westneat & Fox (2010).

Chapters 2-9 address topics related to features of female behavior, particularly, as they pertain to mating, maternal tendencies, and gregariousness. Focusing on females, their strategies, and their energetic requirements as the primary driver of group-living and patterns of male behavior and dispersion is fundamental to an understanding of mammal societies because fertilizeable females are usually a limiting resource for males and, subsequently, an ultimate determinant of male “fitness optima.” Though these and other important concepts are implicit in some of TC-B's discussions, explicit use of many principles inherent to Behavioral Ecology are unclear or lacking (e.g., integration of Hamilton's rule throughout chapters, acknowledgment of the many competing hypotheses in Ecology pertaining to dispersal or multiple-mating by females, use of optimality formulations). As an example from Chapter 5 (“Maternal care”), TC-B's treatment asserts, accurately, that mammalian females invest heavily in current offspring, but theory holds that, after parturition, female resources, above some critical minimum, are channeled into future reproduction and lifetime “fitness.”

Chapters 10-16 pertain to males, especially, mating strategies, relations with females, and paternal care. Characteristic of Mammal Societies as a whole, these chapters are literature reviews of mostly familiar Natural History papers and book chapters from the Animal Behavior literature, and few of the reports classifiable as Behavioral Ecology meet the standards of, say, Bradbury 1981. Life history evolution is addressed in this chapter without mentioning the importance of tradeoffs, the distinction between semelparity and iteroparity (“fast” and “slow” life history trajectories, respectively), and the role of mortality as a driver of life-history evolution (Stearns 2000). Chapter 17 reviews “Cooperative breeding,” one of TC-B's specializations, and Chapter 18 presents a discussion of “Sex differences” (without discussing classic theory). Throughout the book, the author impresses the reader with the centrality of sex, sexual competition, and mating—topics of import in TC-B's career, though one is surprised that more attention is not given to Sexual Selection. Chapters 19 and 20 address hominoids and hominids, including, modern humans, topics often missing or skimmed in other Animal Behavior texts.

TC-B presents at least one controversial formulation in Mammal Societies by asserting, with no supporting evidence or logical arguments, that no mammals are “eusocial”²—that the highest grade of sociality in mammals is “cooperative breeding.” This view is orthogonal to standard practice in Mammalian Social Biology whereby the social mole rats are typically classified as “primitively” eusocial. Technically, according to common usage, “cooperative breeders” might, as well, be classified “primitively” eusocial because of the presence of reproductive division of labor in the form of totipotent “helpers” (see Jones 2014). Mammal Societies highlights the need for practitioners of Natural History, Animal Behavior, and Behavioral Ecology to revisit topics such as standardization of terminology, advancement of the Hamiltonian Project, the roles of quantitative theory and modeling (in particular, agent-based modeling), field experiments, as well as, hypothesis-testing based on 1^st principles. The text will appeal to professors wanting a Natural History, mostly, non-quantitative, review allowing supplementary reading to be incorporated into a syllabus. Future syntheses of Mammalian Social Biology will rely more heavily on mainstream reports from Population Ecology (e.g., Oikos, Functional Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology), of which Behavioral Ecology is a sub-field.

¹Care of offspring by conspecifics other than the mother

²”The evolution of eusociality, here defined as the emergence of societies with reproductive division of labour and cooperative brood care, has occurred under specific ecological, genetic, and life history conditions. Although sophisticated levels of cooperation have evolved in the largest and more complex societies, conflicts among individuals are still common because, in contrast to cells of an organism, they are not genetically identical.” (Keller & Chapuisat, 2010)

References

Bradbury JW (1981) The evolution of leks. In Natural selection and social behavior. (RD Alexander, DW Tinkle, eds). Chiron Press, New York, pp 138-169.

Briga M, Pen I, Wright J (2012) Care for kin: within-group relatedness and allomaternal care are positively correlated and conserved throughout the mammalian phylogeny. Biology Letters: p.rsbl20120159

Clutton-Brock TH, Parker GA (1995) Punishment in animal societies. Nature 373: 209-216.

Davies NB, Krebs JR, West SA (2012) Introduction to behavioral ecology. Wiley-Blackwell, 4^th edition. Oxford, UK.

Jones CB (2014) Evolution of mammalian sociality in an ecological perspective. Springer, New York.

Keller L, Chapuisat M (2010) Eusociality and cooperation. In Encyclopedia of life sciences. Macmillan, published online: DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0003670.pub

Ladevèze S, de Muizon C, Beck RMD, Germain D, Cespedes-Paz R (2011) Earliest evidence of mammalian social behaviour in the basal Tertiary of Bolivia. Nature 474: 83-86.

Sibley RM, Hone J, Clutton-Brock TH (eds) (2003) Wildlife population growth rates. The Royal Society: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge University Press, UK.

Stearns SC (2000) Life history evolution: successes, limitations, and prospects. Naturwissenschaften 87: 476-486.

Westneat D, Fox C (eds) (2010) Evolutionary behavioral ecology. Oxford University Press, Oxford University Press, UK.

Wilson EO (1975) Sociobiology: the new synthesis. Belknap (Harvard), Cambridge, MA.

*Originally published in International Society for Behavioral Ecology Newsletter, 2016