skinner's analysis of verbal behavior: Listener discriminations

A listener discrimination is a nonverbal response to another’s verbal behavior.

With our son on my lap     I ask
 
                                   where’s your nose?
 
             & he taps it lightly
 
                         a question mark
 
                stuck in his eyes
 
                       It’s too early     I think     too early
 
            for him to allow someone else
 
                         to give his body
 
                                       a name.

Unknown. [Portrait of a young child on an armchair], 1859. Albumen silver print. Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

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Brandon Thurman is the author of the chapbook Strange Flesh (Quarterly West, 2018). His poetry can be found in The Adroit Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nashville Review, RHINO, and others. He lives in the Arkansas Ozarks with his husband and son. You can find him online at brandonthurman.com or on Twitter @bthurman87.

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Issue Twelve