The Infinite Woman by Katie Schaag

"As a feminist post-conceptual erasure poetry project, The Infinite Woman (2021) excavates the voice of “the infinite woman” encased within a male-authored, first-person fictional narrative: Edison Marshall’s novel The Infinite Woman (1950), which is based upon the life of the historical figure Lola Montez / Eliza Gilbert. Marshall’s fantasy of the infinite woman erases the material woman, her remains buried in a book that narrativizes her life in the language of conquest and romance. I extract and rearrange sentences from the book containing the word “I” in order to recontextualize the voice of the female protagonist. With a melodramatic tonal and affective register, my project is a performative satire of the novel. But Marshall’s first-person ventriloquizing of Lola’s voice – and my erasure of the text – also produces some surprising moments of imaginative feminist agency. " KS

8"x6" saddle stitch chapbook printed on high quality 24# copy paper and 100# sun yellow cardstock using archival inks throughout. Printed in an initial run of 75 hand-numbered copies.