Tongue

Behind the tip of your tongue is the blade.
In this ground breaking work, Kate Crowcroft examines the tongue as a metaphor and organ, reopening an age-old debate over its freedoms and constraints. In prose poems and personal essay, she explores its moral, medical, and interpersonal significance as the organ of taste, touch, and speech. What results is a radical dive into the historical fictions imposed on the tongue, and a searing dissection of the lies we live by and the truths we hide. Keenly alive to allegory and doubleness in all forms, Tongue: A Cultural Anatomy is a metaphorical anatomy for our times.

Kathryn Crowcroft was born in Melbourne, Australia, and completed her doctorate on the cultural and medical history of the tongue at Jesus College, Cambridge, where she was a twice-awarded Gates scholar. Also a poet, her work has appeared in The Best Australian Poems, The Australian, and Visual Verse, among other forums. She is a recipient of the John Kinsella prize and the Brewer Hall prize.