Cy Weise

The Cyborg Jillian Weise (Cy/She/Hers) takes a licentious approach to genre. Cy's work includes poetry, a novel, essays, video art and disability rights activism. Cy joined the Department of English in Fall 2021 as Associate Professor. Her MFA in Poetry is from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and her PhD in English and Comparative Literature is from The University of Cincinnati. Cy worked in editorial at The Paris Review, The Iowa Review, and The South Carolina Review.

Cy's first book, The Amputee’s Guide to Sex (Soft Skull Press, 2007) was reissued in a 10th-anniversary edition. Cy took a break from poetry to write the speculative novel, The Colony (Soft Skull Press, 2010). It features Charles Darwin and Peter Singer as characters. Returning to poetry, Cy wrote The Book of Goodbyes (BOA Editions, 2013), which won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her fourth book, Cyborg Detective (BOA Editions, 2019), includes page poems that become screen poems, for example, the poem "Confession." The book won the 2020 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Cy’s fifth book, Pills & Jacksonvilles (Ecco, 2024), includes video sonnets first published in POETRY.

Her essays “Going Cyborg” and “The Dawn of the Tryborg” appeared in The New York Times. “Common Cyborg” appeared in Granta. “Was Sappho Nondisabled?” appeared in Psychoanalysis Lacan. During the pandemic, Cy started Borg 4 Borg Productions with A Kim Deal Party. It screened at Public Space One in Iowa City and features a cast of 87 writers and 24 bands. Here is a trailer for the film. 

Cy published the disabled dictionary Borg.Diem first in Braille (2022/23) and then as open access (2024) with Including Disability. The dictionary is available here.