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Melanie Hubbard’s publications include We Have With Us Your Sky (Subito, 2012) and Gilbi Winco Swags (Cannibal, 2008). She is writing a book on Emily Dickinson’s linguistic-philosophical education and has most recently taught at New College of Florida. These illuminated pages are from her current work-in-progress, a treatment of the 1924 book Auto-Suggestion for Mothers.
Auto-Suggestion for Mothers is an erasure of a 1924 book by the same name, a domestic psychology manual which stipulates that the mother, in her power to mold the child’s every habit, use subliminal suggestion during the child’s half-conscious states at bedtime and mornings. Relying on chance and also my own suggestibility, I eliminate most of the rational, persuasive text in order to challenge, play with, undermine, and explore its arguments.
“a child pulses” appeared in the online edition of Small Po[r]tions, issue 1, February 2014.