Flight Characteristics of Human Blood and Stain Patterns
In healthy adults, volume is from 4.5 to 6.0 liters;
not unlike other fluids, it will act in a predictable manner
when subjected to external forces.
Target surface considerations: size, shape, directionality.
Falling through air from fingertip
it will be larger than a drop from hypodermic, smaller
than if from baseball bat.
Viscosity is defined as resistance to change of form or flow.
The stain produced by freefall is a function of volume,
the texture it impacts; in order to create spatter tension must be disturbed,
surfaces ruptured.
Size range is dependent on quantity, on caliber
and impeding factors, such as hair, clothing, etc.
Elongated a stain points in the direction of travel,
if found on the underside of table and chair
he/she was on or near floor—
(fist, bat, concrete block)
the number of blows effects resulting pattern.
She is lying prone, lower body on linoleum floor, left arm flexed inward,
white pharmacy bag around wrist, she is wearing gold bracelets and a watch.
Figure 9.12 Impact spatter produced by beating mechanism.
Note: The text of the poem is collaged source material taken from Recognition of Bloodstain Patterns by Stuart H. James, Paul E. Kish, and T. Paulette Sutton
This poem was originally published in Scapegoat
My work explores the interstices between visual and textual language with a critical eye on their roles in our culture. It is deeply informed by cinematic, poetic, and documentary practice and engages subject matter through disruption of content and form, fragmentation of narrative, and radical juxtaposition of visual and textual elements. Through appropriation of archival source material like film footage, audio recordings, and written texts I investigate language as a cultural artifact, question the intent in its formulation and use, and through techniques of disruption and juxtaposition seek to subvert the source material’s intended interpretation.
Poet, translator, and filmmaker Francesco Levato is the author of four books of poetry: Endless, Beautiful, Exact; Elegy for Dead Languages; War Rug, a book length documentary poem; and Marginal State. He has translated into English the works of Italian poets Tiziano Fratus, Creaturing, and Fabiano Alborghetti, The Opposite Shore. His work has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, both in print and online. He has collaborated and performed with various composers, including Philip Glass, and his cinépoetry has been exhibited in galleries and featured at film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere. He is the founder and director of the Chicago School of Poetics, holds an MFA in poetry from New England College, and is pursuing a PhD in English Studies at Illinois State University.