tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-244061962024-03-19T00:05:26.144-04:00serif of nottingblogWriting, music, and visuals and in between.gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.comBlogger1492125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-70588218985091555222024-03-17T21:56:00.002-04:002024-03-17T21:56:19.783-04:00A Talk on Jews & Jazz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlbcqg6sZyTl5OMHNJsc0HCNN1hnrmycyN4d_zCcra7s5LXe4Uh-k5eL_mKKg6AQ3gNSmm6tEz0eHa1eGEJ9TzLOjQwin5NnSzJYMLq8tfHvxbO-AmD9dI5ylzoJhmJOaq28TfJ-hlP65YpI5Tf5-vAbFKNQM4ddrmOq-0mD0OkvWoi_bFb_Tv8w/s701/Screenshot%202024-03-17%20at%209.54.30%E2%80%AFPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="701" data-original-width="580" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlbcqg6sZyTl5OMHNJsc0HCNN1hnrmycyN4d_zCcra7s5LXe4Uh-k5eL_mKKg6AQ3gNSmm6tEz0eHa1eGEJ9TzLOjQwin5NnSzJYMLq8tfHvxbO-AmD9dI5ylzoJhmJOaq28TfJ-hlP65YpI5Tf5-vAbFKNQM4ddrmOq-0mD0OkvWoi_bFb_Tv8w/s320/Screenshot%202024-03-17%20at%209.54.30%E2%80%AFPM.png" width="265" /></a></div><p><br />I was asked to speak on the subject of "Jews and Jazz" for our local synagogue. Here's what I said. <br /><br />Ah Christmas. Whenever I think of it, I think of sleighbells and glistening children, open fires and chestnut-nosed reindeer. But whenever I think of Christmas, I also think of Jews. Not only the birthday boy over about whom all the fuss is about, but also all those songs. From <i>White Christmas</i> to <i>Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.</i> It's a cliché to point out that so many Christmas songs were written by Jews. Of course, some of the same songwriters wrote the most famous jazz standards of the age: from <i>The Way You Look Tonight</i> and <i>All the Things You Are</i> to <i>Strange Fruit</i> and <i>Summertime</i>. But since tonight's Torah Portion is Terumah and the theme is "gifts we give from the heart," I'd like to speak about another aspect of Jews and jazz. </p><p>But first I'm going to tell you something else this drash isn't about. Did you know that Louis Armstrong wrote a memoir entitled Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, Louisiana., the Year of 1907? Louis and his mother lived with and worked for the Karnoffskys, a Litvak family. He played a tin horn to attract people to their junk wagon and they helped him buy his first trumpet. It's really moving to hear the young Armstrong empathize with the discrimination this poor white family experienced. He wrote, "I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for." Armstrong wore a Magen David all his life, partially in recognition of this family and he supposedly could speak quite a bit of Yiddish. De vunderful vorld, nu, maybe it's a bissel gut?</p><p>Like much of American culture, from its origin until about 1930, jazz was segregated, and black and white musicians were not allowed to perform together, though they sometimes, invisibly. made recordings. For example, there's an early integrated 78 by Louis Armstrong. </p><p>But it's significant that at the beginning of the swing era, when jazz became a mainstream music for both black and white audiences, it was Jewish bandleaders who first included black musicians in their bands. Benny Goodman who led a hugely popular big band—he was the Taylor Swift of the time—very visibly broke the colour bar by including black musicians, notably at his famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert which featured jazz legends such as Lester Young, Count Basie and Johnny Hodges. Even before this, the Jewish big band leader, Mezz Mezzrow attempted to create an integrated orchestra but was stopped Nazi sympathizers.</p><p>Perhaps the most powerful expression of Jewish and black solidarity is the iconic song <i>Strange Fruit</i> made famous by jazz singer Billie Holiday's 1938 recording. It was written by Jewish high school teacher, Abel Meeropol. The song is a chilling representation and condemnation of lynching.</p><p>These efforts at integration and civil rights prefigure later Jewish efforts such as those of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who famously joined John Lewis and Martin Luther King in the third Selma to Montgomery march, amongs other actions. </p><p>It is powerful to think of Jews, who weren't really considered "white" for much of the 20th century, using whatever position they had to support and advocate for equality and human rights. These Jews certainly understood racism: the reason that most of them were in North America was because their families emigrated to avoid pogroms and persecutions in Europe. And they first wrote these songs, formed these bands, made these recordings in the 30s as Nazis and other fascists were coming to power in Europe.</p><p> I became a jazz fan since I began listening to the music of John Coltrane at the same time as I began studying for my Bar Mitzvah. When I went to synagogue and heard the chanting of the cantor, I heard echoes of Coltrane’s freeform improvisations. A solo voice keening, birling, undulating. I heard the expression of another kind of identity – what I imagined was an alternative to the four-square harmony of Western culture. </p><p>Coltrane’s <i>Alabama</i> features the plaintive cantillation of Coltrane’s tenor saxophone, not weepy but a single voice in mourning. In <i>Alabama</i>, I heard the deep grief for four young girls murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in a Birmingham church. Coltrane expressing his sorrow and blessing them with this secular prayer. Sanctifying their experience. What felt like “our” experience, even though, I, of course, knew almost nothing of this and came to it as a middle-class white Jewish teenager, fifteen years later in suburban Ottawa. But it revealed something about the world. This was what was important. This was how one responded with courage and a sense of empathy and morality. </p><p>So Jazz for me is deeply embedded with the idea of compassion, empathy, and fellow-feeling. Do Unto Others. This, to me, is a powerful expression of Terumah,"Gifts we give from the heart." Whoever we are, wherever we are, we are all in this together. We give from the heart, not only in material, spiritual and emotional ways, but by understanding "All the Things You Are," all the things We are, understanding our essential and elemental connection to each other. </p><p>And to quote Louis Armstrong—you remember him from It's a Wonderful World, written by two Jews, by the way— he said, With money in your pocket, you are wise and you are good looking and you sing well, too." No, that's the wrong quote, I mean the other Louis quote, “Seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby - love. That's the secret.”</p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-88652719579819635642024-03-10T01:07:00.017-05:002024-03-10T01:10:15.947-05:00Happy Birthday E. Pauline Johnson.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivysIO5X0m6mtNtj3_A6eM5U2iU545Ot8fAcj8S70QKk4oo4phyphenhyphenBfp38Kf8wlsrHt6lrRKJDk2FZVeZ-Gw0yNDrYXg-rPxrCiS6alYzr14354lRO0NFgSi6S2wicRMLzyt7PbTiE3VjoxQNE8Cziq-Juyev3fwrVIKkgj9ERHYkcEkexWO3SbvQ/s1200/bird%20music%20for%20essay.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="828" data-original-width="1200" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivysIO5X0m6mtNtj3_A6eM5U2iU545Ot8fAcj8S70QKk4oo4phyphenhyphenBfp38Kf8wlsrHt6lrRKJDk2FZVeZ-Gw0yNDrYXg-rPxrCiS6alYzr14354lRO0NFgSi6S2wicRMLzyt7PbTiE3VjoxQNE8Cziq-Juyev3fwrVIKkgj9ERHYkcEkexWO3SbvQ/s320/bird%20music%20for%20essay.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />It's E. Pauline Johnson's birthday today and I've been invited to read some of her poems at her birthplace, Chiefswood. Since Margaret Avison said that the best response to a poem is another poem, I "translated" a couple by two different proceedures. The version of "The Bird's Lullaby," I took all the words of the poem and made a new one. The version of "The Song My Paddle Sings" I translated through about 10 different languages in Google Translate and then edited. I've posted the original poem and then the translation. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /><br />the birds' lullaby</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">i</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">sing to us, cedars; the twilight is creeping<br /> with shadowy garments, the wilderness through;<br />all day we have carolled, and now would be sleeping,<br /> so echo the anthems we warbled to you;<br /> while we swing, swing,<br /> and your branches sing,<br /> and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">ii</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">sing to us, cedars; the night-wind is sighing,<br /> is wooing, is pleading, to hear you reply;<br />and here in your arms we are restfully lying,<br /> and longing to dream to your soft lullaby;<br /> while we swing, swing,<br /> and your branches sing,<br /> and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">iii</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">sing to us, cedars; your voice is so lowly,<br /> your breathing so fragrant, your branches so strong;<br />our little nest-cradles are swaying so slowly,<br /> while zephyrs are breathing their slumberous song.<br /> and we swing, swing,<br /> while your branches sing,<br /> and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> .</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br />LULLABY BIRDS</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br />we while is sing</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the while to song</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">sleeping</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">while we their arms<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to warbled day<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">we drowse pleading<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">while so strong</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and little your birds</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">our you to all the now would have us</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">echo wooing through you<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the hear lullaby</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">zephyrs swaying into wilderness is voice</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">we here swing we<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">dreamy swing</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">is branches slowly cedars<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">so breathing swing</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">shadowy and your garments, <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">branches twilight<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">drowse your nest-cradles is</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to sing to lowly<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to lullaby sing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to whispering swing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to dream i, we, and creeping be</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to night-wind dreamy lying are</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">your whispering we longing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">so drowse your cedars we<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">your sing</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">we your and your and anthems <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to restfully sighing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">are you dreamy swing <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to reply and us to carolled branches<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">soft and us slumberous<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">us branches and sing</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">us dreamy sing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">are so with breathing fragrant<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">us your whispering</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">your dreamy sing so<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">dreamy cedars your sing to sing</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Song My Paddle Sings</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br />West wind, blow from your prairie nest,<br />Blow from the mountains, blow from the west<br />The sail is idle, the sailor too;<br />O! wind of the west, we wait for you.<br />Blow, blow!<br />I have wooed you so,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But never a favour you bestow.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You rock your cradle the hills between,<br />But scorn to notice my white lateen.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I stow the sail, unship the mast:<br />I wooed you long but my wooing’s past;<br />My paddle will lull you into rest.<br />O! drowsy wind of the drowsy west,<br />Sleep, sleep,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">By your mountain steep,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Or down where the prairie grasses sweep!<br />Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,<br />For soft is the song my paddle sings.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">August is laughing across the sky,<br />Laughing while paddle, canoe and I,<br />Drift, drift,<br />Where the hills uplift<br />On either side of the current swift.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The river rolls in its rocky bed;<br />My paddle is plying its way ahead;<br />Dip, dip,<br />While the waters flip<br />In foam as over their breast we slip.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And oh, the river runs swifter now;<br />The eddies circle about my bow.<br />Swirl, swirl!<br />How the ripples curl<br />In many a dangerous pool awhirl!</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And forward far the rapids roar,<br />Fretting their margin for evermore.<br />Dash, dash,<br />With a mighty crash,<br />They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!<br />The reckless waves you must plunge into.<br />Reel, reel.<br />On your trembling keel,<br />But never a fear my craft will feel.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We’ve raced the rapid, we’re far ahead!<br />The river slips through its silent bed.<br />Sway, sway,<br />As the bubbles spray<br />And fall in tinkling tunes away.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And up on the hills against the sky,<br />A fir tree rocking its lullaby,<br />Swings, swings,<br />Its emerald wings,<br />Swelling the song that my paddle sings.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span>WIND FROM THE WEST<span> </span> </span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Wind from the mountain</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Wind from the west</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">The west wind blows and whistles through the grass</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">We are nothing but bones</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Wind from the west </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Our life is over</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Nothing but bones </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">The west wind blows and </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">we were not counted</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">West wind, we wait for you</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Fold our wings and sleep</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">There are angry songs</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">a river flowing over rocks.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">a deep river flowing</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">a deep river flowing fast</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">We sleep beside the river</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Rise like unexpected waves</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">We do not fear </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">our power will not be known</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">We left life early </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Now we are far away</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">The water flows over us</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">The water flows over our bed</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">The corn is planted, the corn is harvested.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">It wrote this song</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">this song for us to sing</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Wind from the mountain</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Wind from the west</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">The west wind blows and whistles through the grass</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">We are nothing but bones</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></p><div><br /></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p>
gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-90181234116954855342024-02-25T15:54:00.005-05:002024-02-25T15:54:39.878-05:00Translations as the Anti-ship of Theseus<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4YtGPhxAlBhFHeArSUlcunRmGOxBmFkR2d7nCjeAh2b77REzA9IiMDxfZ2OK0XYINr97BKmRzXWW70LMJ9Lcf1F0bLXIMEx-igjplNq4beSrUHzRXA0v_GG92LmTYATtEqiNbZ_IepsWU_7HX1MiNPG-NnTgNTSdhfo_LuF1vi8PGAmbdcKGOsQ/s1500/nancy%20ampersand%20in%20mirror.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1203" data-original-width="1500" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4YtGPhxAlBhFHeArSUlcunRmGOxBmFkR2d7nCjeAh2b77REzA9IiMDxfZ2OK0XYINr97BKmRzXWW70LMJ9Lcf1F0bLXIMEx-igjplNq4beSrUHzRXA0v_GG92LmTYATtEqiNbZ_IepsWU_7HX1MiNPG-NnTgNTSdhfo_LuF1vi8PGAmbdcKGOsQ/s320/nancy%20ampersand%20in%20mirror.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>I don't really know what translation is. It carries one thing to another place that is perhaps the same place after all. Reminds you of it. Or it carries it across a river from one bank to the other; sister places, brothers beside the river. Translation is a tricky mirror. Someone's tongue in another's mouth. </p><p>Here are two texts about translation. The second presents E. Pauline Johnson's <b>The Bird's Lullaby </b>and my "translation" of it. It's a translation by reordering the words, keeping the sound, the tonality, the elements of its world. A kind of antiship of Theseus. The universe is made of the infinite juggling of finite atoms. </p><p>The first is about translation within English. What is it that the world is possibly or impossibly Englishable? </p><p style="text-align: left;">Let me end with a quote by the just passed Lyn Hejinian:<br /><br /></p><blockquote> Without what can a person function as the sea functions without me?</blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><span> </span>*<br /><br />I am writing this in English because I want to be subversive. It wants to be subversive. Ok, now some parataxis. That means an owl. My insides owl. What is night? It is English. The subject object, the noun verb, the crickets' buzz, the velvet thickness of air. Thick as adjectives between adverbs' fingers. We adverb night when we adjective swim through English air and owls are a premonition of our weaknessless. Subversive because it is a translation from the original English. The original English: paratactic because one velvet thing after another and no one knew what it meant, cut from soil then brought a great distance and lifted into a circle of standing sentences. Arrive at the right time and it aligns with sun. Speaking the known to owl, from knurl to slurry, speaking English to night what isn't Englishable. English like us, grown around a wound.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">*<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>The Birds' Lullaby<br />E. Pauline Johnson</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">i</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">sing to us, cedars; the twilight is creeping</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> with shadowy garments, the wilderness through;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">all day we have carolled, and now would be sleeping,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> so echo the anthems we warbled to you;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> while we swing, swing,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> and your branches sing,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">ii</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">sing to us, cedars; the night-wind is sighing,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> is wooing, is pleading, to hear you reply;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">and here in your arms we are restfully lying,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> and longing to dream to your soft lullaby;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> while we swing, swing,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> and your branches sing,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">iii</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">sing to us, cedars; your voice is so lowly,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> your breathing so fragrant, your branches so strong;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">our little nest-cradles are swaying so slowly,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> while zephyrs are breathing their slumberous song.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> and we swing, swing,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> while your branches sing,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>We While is Sing (Bird Lullaby)</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">we while is sing</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">the while to song</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">sleeping</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">while we their arms </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">to warbled day </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">we drowse pleading </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">while so strong</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">and little your birds</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">our you to all the now would have us</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">echo wooing through you </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">the hear lullaby</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">zephyrs swaying into wilderness is voice</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">we here swing we </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">dreamy swing</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">is branches slowly cedars </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">so breathing swing</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">shadowy and your garments, </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">branches twilight </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">drowse your nest-cradles is</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">to sing to lowly </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">to lullaby sing </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">to whispering swing </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">to dream i, we, and creeping be</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">to night-wind dreamy lying are</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">your whispering we longing </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">so drowse your cedars we </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">your sing</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">we your and your and anthems </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">to restfully sighing </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">are you dreamy swing </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">to reply and us to carolled branches </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">soft and us slumberous </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">us branches and sing</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">us dreamy sing </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">are so with breathing fragrant </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">us your whispering</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">your dreamy sing so </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">dreamy cedars your sing to sing</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><br /><p></p>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-65505324645395575812024-01-15T12:14:00.004-05:002024-01-15T12:14:40.244-05:00Nancy without Nancy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjclvvwlDPCnCBffabOVnUU3bJC_TluYk_PoYZn_h-rk86mzyIglahjjLhrYoZfmLIo2TPtGrgLMPgGCg5GoIzOAqI1JAhbBmYxa4_KB6GLakgs8Y1u7seIcXNHvjfCYCGBrPnpeIl42TI2JJE0Qm9f_kQ3T_jvoDFsTEVSmy4Q79vlVvtfM9WxsA/s3444/nancy%20snowman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3444" data-original-width="2736" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjclvvwlDPCnCBffabOVnUU3bJC_TluYk_PoYZn_h-rk86mzyIglahjjLhrYoZfmLIo2TPtGrgLMPgGCg5GoIzOAqI1JAhbBmYxa4_KB6GLakgs8Y1u7seIcXNHvjfCYCGBrPnpeIl42TI2JJE0Qm9f_kQ3T_jvoDFsTEVSmy4Q79vlVvtfM9WxsA/w322-h406/nancy%20snowman.jpg" width="322" /></a></div><p>Silence in the comic strip as if only puffs of speech and thought like clouds of breath or actual clouds were hanging in the emptied rooms, the vacant roads, the grass outside the house. There once were people. Or soon will be. There once were the things they said or thought or would say. If there's wind, it's invisible, moving through the panels like a vague presentiment of the end of what—possibility, communication, ink? We say what we cannot say, think the impossible, something edgeless, blurry, the heart, useless, has lost its chambers and so pulls and pushes, sucks and squirts in unrecognizable rhythm, pumps because what else is it to do? A kettle boils for no-one. The sprinkler is on. The difference between everything and nothing is not clear. </p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-23336375796749428912023-12-16T17:17:00.008-05:002023-12-16T17:17:57.885-05:00Hanukkah Meditations<p><i><br /></i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCf8K62loGqyeuzUetoRMImhI2VYcPpWp6PUx9pPy9sheWZd2ySNRUgohmNpFQ6braxeYujuV7oxWrv_HXSIWtkUdhnsBTQ_Y_OQfWG7f2JiWxrzcNA7ISCnyV-qUbEQFssZBtGV4HSw8NKkMSg-TmsINICyZgcWIXDyTLzC8uxrkjXwu59Nx6mQ/s1476/happy%20hannukah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1335" data-original-width="1476" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCf8K62loGqyeuzUetoRMImhI2VYcPpWp6PUx9pPy9sheWZd2ySNRUgohmNpFQ6braxeYujuV7oxWrv_HXSIWtkUdhnsBTQ_Y_OQfWG7f2JiWxrzcNA7ISCnyV-qUbEQFssZBtGV4HSw8NKkMSg-TmsINICyZgcWIXDyTLzC8uxrkjXwu59Nx6mQ/s320/happy%20hannukah.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i>All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly then I become another. </i><p></p><p><i> —Mahmoud Darwish<br /></i></p><p>Hanukkah celebrates many things. In its symbol of the miraculous eight-days of light, I like to consider it to represent the survival and wish for hope and the ability to be secure (light, warmth, food) despite perhaps insurmountable odds. To be able to define one's life and community on one's own terms. I also think it celebrates the right, possibility and hope for all communities and all peoples to have the freedom to live, believe and flourish regardless of the challenges of the present.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1tBX1bzoMX2cuRUovkV-z3OAArkoqCJuboftntoTXd65rRZ3ZrtoazcGrLAZO2YPbTYbQOGFcrScWUJ_owxEoDaoUEdihfWwx7ml9KWYHegynUmawigxUyYk_Fq3lfjh816Ffd-VXrTtMBqjjH-G0N_K-w4-iws0f3aJOK2IaXNfVhoHKStstDA/s1518/Screenshot%202023-12-16%20at%205.16.50%E2%80%AFPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="1518" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1tBX1bzoMX2cuRUovkV-z3OAArkoqCJuboftntoTXd65rRZ3ZrtoazcGrLAZO2YPbTYbQOGFcrScWUJ_owxEoDaoUEdihfWwx7ml9KWYHegynUmawigxUyYk_Fq3lfjh816Ffd-VXrTtMBqjjH-G0N_K-w4-iws0f3aJOK2IaXNfVhoHKStstDA/s320/Screenshot%202023-12-16%20at%205.16.50%E2%80%AFPM.png" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">* </span></div><p></p><p>The lights of Hanukkah which we light at home are for me a symbol that we are the centre of our own light. We are not in the diaspora of another light but our centre is light. We must continue to kindle these lights, to ensure that there is light at the centre of our lives, that there can be light at the centre of others' lives. Our identity, our values, our selves are centred in this light which is an understanding and appreciation of the light at the centre of all living things, human and non-human.</p><p>*</p><p>One light leads us to a second and the second to the third and so on until the eighth. Rather than being like the repeating lashes of a whip, each day can be a light, a passing of light from one to the other. An illumination of the way forward, an illumination of the past. The light is not only energy and brightness, but clarity and honesty. Where has each day come from and where is it leading? Who is burnt and who is brightened by the flame and how long will it last?</p><p>*</p><p>Each day we light new candles assuming that eventually we will light them all, for all. Tonight I think about the candles that we have not yet lit. Tonight I think about the candles that perhaps will never be illuminated because we have run out of time or light or else our work has been interrupted or hindered by fear or war or lack of possibility. Tonight, I light these candles thinking of the work of tomorrow when more candles will be kindled, when less candles will remain in darkness.</p><p>*</p><p>The match lights the shamash candle and the shamash candle lights the other candles, one for each day. We blow out the match and throw it away. If lighting the candles is a metaphor, a creation of light now and a recreation of light then, then I think of the match.</p><p>*</p><p>On this last day, all candles throughout the world and from the time of our forebears have been illuminated and we take time to celebrate how much light there is. But we imagine the time ahead— an entire year minus eight days—where there will not be these candles, where there will be no light. Except we remember and we look forward. And we make light in other ways, for other reasons for ourselves and for others. And we look to others' lights, look to having these conversations about light, about dark, about when it will be light again.</p><p> </p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-53979957676044066732023-12-10T13:15:00.001-05:002023-12-10T13:15:11.360-05:00PINK TELEPHONE<p> </p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/48BMyQACSeM?si=1goHN280Bz2Cb9GF" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>PINK TELEPHONE<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>There were six telephones. There were a hundred telephones. There were fifty-seven telephones. They were all the same telephone, pink and ringing. The woods were filled with telephones and they were ringing. Should I answer? Should I answer one telephone or all of them? These telephones that were made of flesh and that called me. How far can a voice travel? What is the greatest distance between humans? What can be said from so far? What can be whispered from nearby? But who is calling? A tree, the earth, those who have gone, the pizza delivery place confirming the colour of olives? Friend, lover, my grief. Has time itself got on the horn to remind me, or memory, a priest, my mother? What is it to be in a forest ringing? I walk. I sing. I sleep. I remember the phone numbers of my childhood, the imagined numbers of constellations and celebrities, that after you dialed, you heard another world, a veiled world, hissing like the sea.</div><div><br />_________<br />Delighted that Elee Kraljii Gardiner and I have this piece published in the latest issue of <a href="https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/">The Goose</a> (edited by Ariel Gordon and Tanis MacDonald.) Elee placed this old pink telephone in various places in the woods near her home in Vancouver and took this haunting photographs. I made the images into the video and added music and text speaking to Elee's images. This is part of an ongoing larger project that we're doing, writing texts together, as well as a variety of real-world and multimedia aspects. Our chapbook (with multimedia) <a href="https://www.timglaset.com/produktsida/gary-barwin-elee-kraljee-gardiner-watcher">WATCHER </a> was published by Timglaset Editions (Malmo, Sweden.) We have some exhibitions scheduled as well as other work at large (for example in <a href="https://louisville.edu/miraclemonocle/issue-21/gary-barwin-and-elee-kraljii-gardiner">Miracle Monocle</a>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>________<br /><br />I've had a discussion with several musicians, artists, & writers about their desire to create work that isn't negative or "ugly," but somehow reframes the discussion while still interrogating or being aware of the issues, the complications. Not to create some kind of soma, but trying to think towards creating a resistant affirmation. Anyone else having these discussions or thoughts?</div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-11299996093287678552023-12-04T18:13:00.002-05:002023-12-04T18:13:11.266-05:00OCEAN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pYv2VQLrOdsImY7Ccl91oRXms6i5sHVxdDa4_VSK0u2XFeab7-hAR_nK__TeY-S_QBhM1FzQrQ54gAhGUdvzVtmFIdUZB5w_OY8sCta2kOIKNnaWk7cvxCeOkU090AX144dDiKzWvEuEXSBT7XP33FByUb7p2eUmySv_5oeLKyKQs1do7CiI9Q/s2283/speech%20balloon%20escher%20red.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2098" data-original-width="2283" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pYv2VQLrOdsImY7Ccl91oRXms6i5sHVxdDa4_VSK0u2XFeab7-hAR_nK__TeY-S_QBhM1FzQrQ54gAhGUdvzVtmFIdUZB5w_OY8sCta2kOIKNnaWk7cvxCeOkU090AX144dDiKzWvEuEXSBT7XP33FByUb7p2eUmySv_5oeLKyKQs1do7CiI9Q/s320/speech%20balloon%20escher%20red.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The story I write explains how the future contains a small box the size that might hold a wedding ring. But inside this box is no ring, instead, a nipple. Perfect red raspberry rising from the pink galaxy of its areola. I do not know if it is the left or right only that it is from one whom I love. Think of the difficult borders of nations. Wind rustling trees, moving through fields, over dunes, has a source just as rivers have a source. I carry this box with me always as a guide, a token, a relic. The sound of the ocean in a shell, but which ocean? </p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-1995849852666881712023-11-26T18:43:00.005-05:002023-11-26T18:43:50.817-05:00Breathe Moss and a video for my new book, Imagining Imagining: Essays on Language, Identity and Infinity.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzvBU0ZatCHKMb3IqqSUV8Paj7MzOi_epTVdRJteGumHNEYhWPpdLxp5Dp-_eC8nPu23YPyicuKoS8' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><p>BREATHE MOSS</p><p> </p><p>The dustpan at the end of day here in the motel of escapees. A sniffle, a subcontinent, a plutocrat with superstar characteristics. Long blemishes of grease shine like miniseries. Weather throbs and sunshine appears, warms the skunk's foreparts. A patrolman on an off-day partakes in wink and simulation, then parked cars dissolve. An airship, low above the night table, fills with rivers, accepts me as a discoverer. The bomb and the dead absorb the rampage. Thousands create undulations beneath no shingle. Wait. Grow from the mileage. Breathe in lengthening shanties. Breathe from all sieves. Breathe your own moss. <br /><br />________<br /><br /><a href="https://bookstore.wolsakandwynn.ca/products/imagining-imagining-essays-on-writing-identity-and-infinity">More about <i>Imagining Imagining</i> & to purchase.</a></p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-31389671231904043522023-11-19T16:01:00.000-05:002023-11-26T18:40:59.444-05:00Tkhine<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZeRi_7A-MYY?si=5FW1uXlHHyiUP4an" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><p><b>Tkhine</b></p><p> </p><p>I arise before the day to pour my heart like water and wish hearts fluid as rivers, seeking oceans, able to move through the bend of the world, to flow around rocks, to wear mountains or move through cities as a flood yet remain tender as a drop of water or tears.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>*<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">from Wikipedia:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tkhine">Tkhines or teḥinot </a>(Yiddish: תְּחִנּוֹת, lit. 'supplications', pronounced [tˈxɪnəs] or Hebrew: pronounced [tχiˈnot]) may refer to Yiddish prayers and devotions, usually personal and from a female viewpoint, or collections of such prayers. They were written for Ashkenazi Jewish women who, unlike the men of the time, typically could not read Hebrew, the language of the established synagogue prayer book.[1] They were most popular from the 1600s to the early 1800s, with the first major collection of tkhines, the Seyder Tkhines, being printed in 1648.[2] Unlike Hebrew prayers, tkhines dealt with issues specific to women. Despite being for women, it is thought that many tkhines were written by men and the authorship of most tkhines is often difficult to establish, due to multiple publications of the same tkhine and the use of pseudonyms.[3][4] </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><br /> <p></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-86626591321662960312023-11-06T13:28:00.006-05:002023-11-06T13:28:38.794-05:00THE SONG OF OURSELVES IN THE SHADOW OF NOW, a speech about the importance of writing in dark times<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">THE SONG OF OURSELVES IN THE SHADOW OF NOW</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">a talk for Sheridan College, November 4, 2023<br /><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4N97RoAEtykgAPdVA63Jqci0Gg1hmGKhcNVx8l7JbDLTVhQwirsexJwcYYoNRFgvASk9L-WkMBipnRlf8qbSnApZ5oiFrvY5kbQMy4sc7F_1qanbXZ65ImMtARm3lorv7c29MnR4cHY4Tfvny9sCsHNLPMDGHCcux2RMRg5y6hzHQRnk_k6p6Q/s2177/ampersand%20serafini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1954" data-original-width="2177" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4N97RoAEtykgAPdVA63Jqci0Gg1hmGKhcNVx8l7JbDLTVhQwirsexJwcYYoNRFgvASk9L-WkMBipnRlf8qbSnApZ5oiFrvY5kbQMy4sc7F_1qanbXZ65ImMtARm3lorv7c29MnR4cHY4Tfvny9sCsHNLPMDGHCcux2RMRg5y6hzHQRnk_k6p6Q/s320/ampersand%20serafini.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This past weekend, I had the great privilege of giving a keynote speech for Sheridan College/The Ampersand Review's <i>& Festival </i>in Mississauga, Ontario. Here is what I said.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-align: start;">* * *<br /></span></p><div style="text-align: left;">Over the last couple weeks, I've been thinking about what I might say this afternoon. I thought about addressing craft or genre, perhaps how to develop a sustainable writing career or even what I've learned over many years of publishing, but those things, though useful didn't feel like the most important topics to address right now during these particularly difficult and complex times.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Though very dramatic, and perhaps even drama doesn't seem quite right for our current moment, I think of Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming" written just over a hundred years ago:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The ceremony of innocence is drowned;</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The best lack all conviction, while the worst </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Are full of passionate intensity.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Lately, so many things feel like they have fallen apart or are in the process of falling apart. Our lives and the values we lived by. The centre—our centre, wherever we locate that—is not holding. Things we thought were certain are not certain. We can't count on what we once thought we could count on. I don't know if "mere anarchy has been loosed upon the world," but it definitely feels like the systems and environments that gave us stability aren't so stable. We're living in a time of significant change. Maybe the kind of epochal change that Yeats felt after the First World War when he wrote "The Second Coming."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Late-stage capitalism has been loosed upon the world and with it the replacement of the category of "citizen" with that of "consumer." It feels like we're losing our agency. We've allowed corporations to control what we think of as reality, to control our desires. Social Media works on even the neurochemicals of our happiness. There's an increasing economic separation between rich and poor, between the global north and global south. Between the Haves and the Should Haves. Churchill once said that democracy was the worst form of government except for all the others. Now we are seeing the erosion of meaningful democracies, seeing the places where power actually resides. Everywhere we see war and suffering. We're just on the other side of a global pandemic. What even is job security? Or a liveable wage? And the climate crisis is worsening quickly—fires, floods, mass extinction, refugees.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. All of these things are interconnected, of course, even as we all are interconnected. No wonder I want to spend my time watching the stars in the night sky. Those were simpler times.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> It can seem entirely overwhelming. What should we do? Is there even anything that we can do? How can we address all this rapid change, this increasing lack of stability, of certainty?</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> So today, what I'd like to talk about is the role of the writer. The role of the writer in these current times. I want to speak about how important writers are, how important readers are, how vital creative writing is. How vital literature is. We humans have developed this remarkable technology—writing. And writing has developed us. We have made literature what it is, and literature has made us what we are also. Its role, to quote David Byrne, is "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was." </span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Writing reminds us to be human. It reminds us to be human together.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Albert Camus puts it another way: "the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> And Toni Morrison writes, "I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art." Furthermore, she says, "This is precisely the time when artists go to work...We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Ok, so we can all go home and write haiku. Seventeen syllables and we'll solve all the world's problems.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Why do we worry? (5)<br /> Every word on earth is (7)</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> in the perfect place. (5)</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">My son used to tell me that the first seventeen syllables of anything is a haiku. And it is a good start. But of course there's more to say about the role of the writer and of writing.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Plato, famous stan of Socrates, wrote that he didn't want poets in his Utopia because they were too subversive. He didn't want writers there to stir things up, to speak possibly seditious truth to power. If you're the Emperor and your supposed clothes are the mistaken beliefs of your people, you don't want anyone there to point to the naked truth.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Sometimes we only think of this truth-telling function when in extreme circumstances.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Here's a searingly powerful passage from the poem "Requiem" by the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">…I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from the cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there):</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“Can you describe this?”</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And I said: “I can.”</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.”</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This a remarkable record of the brutal experience of the Soviet people, it speaks to the writer's role as witness—the woman who smiled with "what had once been her face" knows that Akhmatova will record this, will archive this painful story in her writing where we, seventy years later and across a continent and an ocean, can experience it. Akhmatova's writing is an enduring witness to history and human experience. But the poem also does something else.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> In a poem about the Holocaust, Paul Celan writes that, "No one/bears witness for the/ witness." But Akhmatova's poem does. It recalls history and it recalls the experience of experiencing history. Writing witnesses and it speaks to the experience of the witness.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Writing notices. It remembers. It records. And it does so from the perspective of the writer. It makes that point of view important. Here's a part of a poem by Yehuda Amichai:</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing<br />of the one you love<br />so that on the day of loss you'll be able to say: last seen<br />wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat.<br />Try to remember some details. For they have no face<br />and their soul is hidden and their crying<br />is the same as their laughter,<br />........<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Try, try<br />to remember some details.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Writing is noticing, but it can also be the song of oneself. It can speak of who you are. And it gives you the opportunity of declaring it in your own voice and in your own words. As UK writer John Berger writes, "Nobody knows exactly why birds sing as much as they do. What is certain is that they don't sing to deceive themselves or others. They sing to announce themselves as they are."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> We can speak of the experience of others. We can speak of the experience of ourselves. In writing, you take agency. It is your story, your words and you are saying them when you want to. And writing imagines community. Perhaps you imagine sharing your words with another. Of creating a connection. Of being in this—all of this—together.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> There's an iconic poem called "Motto," by Bertolt Brecht that you perhaps have heard:</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br />In the dark times<br />Will there also be singing?<br />Yes, there will also be singing.<br />About the dark times.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What does singing about the dark times mean? If we sing a happy song in a dark time, we know we are singing in the context of that dark time. Maybe it is a defiant, subversive act, a refusal to despair or be cowed by the darkness. If we sing darkly about the dark times, we name what is happening. We name what we are experiencing. We remember our humanity, our shared humanity. Our story may be dark, but we are the ones telling it. To tell the story is to have agency.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> There's an old Jewish joke, based on the idea that Jewish people don't drink.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Why don't Jews drink? Because it dulls the pain.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> The joke is saying that it may be painful, but it's our pain, our story to tell. We save our memories for the future so that we will not be forgotten. So that everyone will not be forgotten. A song in dark times is a powerful response. What can we do in dark times? We can be most profoundly ourselves. We sing the song of ourselves. For ourselves and on behalf of others.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> It's true that a book seems a small thing in the vastness of the world. It has the same surface area as an open hand or the cross section of a brain. I look at a single book among the thousands of other books in the library. It seems the tiny voice of a needle in a hayfield. Or I compare the book to something as vast a mountain or a shopping mall like Square One. What can this little book even do?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Auden famously said, "Poetry Makes Nothing Happen," and Adorno wrote that "it is barbaric to write poetry after Auschwitz." The value of creative writing is always in question.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> But I like what Charles Bernstein wrote in a poem addressing 9/11, “the question isn’t /is art up to this/ but what else is art for?”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I think about the mystical belief that letters existed before the world and that the world was made from letters. I feel that so too it is the writer's job to continuously remake the world with their language.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I said before that writing is a kind of looking, of noticing. Sometimes looking out at the world, sometimes looking in at the writer or even at the writing. Writing asks what it means to speak, to write. It asks how do words—our own and other's— influence us? How do they change what we think and see and feel? Canadian writer, Steve McCaffery wrote that, "Capitalism begins when you open the dictionary." He means that our language shapes how we see society. It has a built-in default world view. But as writers, we can notice such biases. We can work to change language to conform to how we think the world is. To conform to our experience how things actually are. Of how things might be.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> A simple example. Thirty-five years ago when my wife became a lawyer, they called her a "lady-lawyer." Now she's just a lawyer. Well, ok, an experienced lawyer. Maybe this is a good time to tell you what our son used to say about his lawyer mother and his writer father. He said, "Mommy makes the paper money and Daddy, makes the change.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I believe that writing is always a conversation. It surprises, consoles, entertains and energizes. The simple yet complex act of engaging in dialogue is powerful. It wakes us up to possibility. To the possibility of being human. Of remaining human. Of seeing other humans. It's easy for things to become business as usual, for us to be become numb or inattentive, given the complexity and fast pace of life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> But an image or a metaphor can affect the world. It can cause us to see it anew.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I think that's why Ezra Pound says that "Poetry is news that stays news." I agree with him. And, I'd add that poetry is also poetry that stays poetry. And by "poetry" I mean all literature. Poetry refuses to be anything but words. It refuses to be only words. Poetry makes us make poetry happen.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Recently, a journalist emailed me some questions. They asked how I've used my work to bring good into the world. They asked how I might inspire the most amount of good to the most amount of people. The question felt ridiculous, after all I'm just a writer and not even a journalist.So, what good is my small writing career doing in the world? And what does "good" look like for a writer? </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>When I was 17, in my first year of undergrad, I stressed about my choice to be a writer. After all, my father was a doctor. He saved people's lives. And as an obstetrician, he literally helped with bringing new life into the world. What could I do? Write a killer ending for a story about a break-up? Use adverbs in a really surprising way? What good was that? Eventually, I settled on something like "doctors make you healthy and then writers, take it from there." But what does that look like? How should we use that opportunity?</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I think writing leads people to their own perceptions, ideas and feelings. It opens up possibilities for them to notice and understand more about themselves and the world. More about language, sound and sight. By paying attention and thinking through ideas and experiences, writing brings surprise, depth and freshness to the reader. I believe goodness results through being as aware as possible of ourselves and our patterns of being, our patterns of belief and perception, as well as the pure present pleasure of interacting with art, with living itself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I proceed from a belief that my writing adds to the conversation and thereby contributes to the good. I believe that helping people notice their own noticing—their feelings, perceptions and ideas—and helping them unpack the assumptions and biases our language, culture and position steer us toward, is inherently good. With the multiplicity of ideas, facts, and beliefs currently surrounding us, the most revolutionary and beneficial approach is to help people attend to what is going on inside them and what's going on inside others, in a way that isn't driven or distorted by fear, power or money. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I think that somewhere deep in the core of a writer is the belief that if people truly understand themselves, the world will be a better place. If people truly understand others or at least understand them as having as rich and nuanced lives as ourselves, then the world will be better. Fundamentally, writing is about accessing our humanity. Never forgetting what it means to be human. Never forgetting what it means for others to be human, no matter how challenging.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> *</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> As a small child in Ireland, I remember hunting around my dad's office and finding a little box that perfectly held a hundred blank index cards. The box seemed so magical and full of possibility I knew I had to write some magic spells, some mysterious incantations. I snuck the box into my room and immediately began writing on the cards. I didn't know any spells but I wanted to capture the feeling of magic so I just made up a script. No one could read it, not even me. But that wasn't the point. I filled all the index cards with this cursive hoodoo. My goal was to create a feeling, to use the form of spells and the loops and swirls, scratches and knurls of my invented script. I was whispering to life itself. We were connecting. My writing put me at the centre of speaking. In the middle of secrets.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Should writing have an explicit message, the activist's version of, "Live, laugh, love," and not "Write. Regret. Revise. Repeat." And not something like Arthur Ashe's “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” or Angela Davis's “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Maybe I'm just saying show not tell? Embody not bully.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""> </span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Bernard Malamud says a writer should "keep civilization from destroying itself." But, he adds, "without preaching. Artists, cannot be ministers. As soon as they attempt it, they destroy their artistry."<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Malamud means that the most effective writing makes an offer to its reader to engage with it. To connect. This is different than work which does nothing more than preach at its readers. That is a one-way street, from writer to reader. To me, the most effective writing engages its readers in meaning-making, in taking a journey together, even if it is only a musical one. The most effective writing makes an offer to its reader. It doesn't need to give answers but it asks good questions. And it gives context for those questions.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> My grandfather used to tell me this story:</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">There were two synagogues on the same street and they did things differently. Then one day they joined together. For a particular prayer, half the congregation stood up. The other half remained seated. They argued about what was the right thing to do. It created a commotion and so someone asked the old rabbi what was the authentic tradition. They're already doing it, the rabbi said. Standing up or sitting down? they asked him. Neither, the old rabbi said. The tradition is to argue about it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">So it isn't necessarily about having one simple answer, good writing is about engaging with the question, asking the right questions, having the right arguments. Sometimes meaning withdraws to make room for us to make meaning, to repair the world by our understanding. To engage with the world through our questions.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Once I asked my grandfather, "Why do you always answer a question with a question?" And he replied, "And how do you want me to answer?"</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Really, the act of writing is inherently an act of optimism and strength. Even Samuel Beckett writing about the existential despair of his tramps, living in mud and sucking stones for food and enjoyment is an act of belief. His writing is a belief in expression, in humans, in the importance of writing, even if it is one slow existential mud-caked howl.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> *</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">When I spoke about the state of the world, I quoted Yeats's The Second Coming. He was a great poet born in Ireland. But, hey, what about me. I was born in Ireland, too. So I'd like to read this poem of mine—it's a good one to read at Sheridan because it refers to a painting by Paul Vermeersch who was also the editor who published the book it was in.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Grip</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">today my students wrote a story about</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">a centaur falling in love with a sheep</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">there was an ex-husband who was a cowboy</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">and he mourned his lost dog</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">also, the bad guy turned out to be the moon</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">even though he was named Taco</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">later my friend Paul made art showing</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The First Centaur on the Moon</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">it was wearing gloves and I said</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“with those gloves, the centaur cannot hold”</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">and really, like Yeats said, things fall apart</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">but today reminded me: not everything</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Now I'd like to expand our conversation to include mammoths. Or rather more specifically to talk about American speculative writer Ursula K. Le Guin's important essay, "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction" and how it relates to our discussion.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Much of writing in Western literature focusses on the hero. A man—and it was most often a man—has a great story to tell about his exploits. He's undertaken an amazing quest and has come back to tell us about it. Sometimes this takes the form of "The Hero's Journey," as explained by Joseph Campbell. This is the structure of many stories. He goes somewhere, does something epic, and then returns. There and Back Again.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Le Guin uses the example of a prehistoric bro who hunts a mammoth. It really is a great story. This guy, armed only with a spear goes out into the wild lands and finds and kills a mammoth. He's amazing. He almost gets killed. In fact, one of his buddies does get killed—he was impaled on one of the mammoth's </span><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none="">tusks. It roared its terrible roars and gnashed its terrible teeth, it rolled its terrible eyes and showed its terrible claws, and buddy became caveman shish kebab. But our hero bagged the mammoth and brought it back for the whole village. There was great celebration, a ceremony to mourn the dead, lots of praise for the extraordinary feats of our hero—he told an absolutely captivating story by the firelight, everyone was impressed at what a hero he was. Then they all had a great feast of mammoth and he told his story again. This guy was a culture hero. Look, he fed the community and they even got clothes and other vital necessities from the rest of the mammoth.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""> Ok, cool story, bro. This sounds like many of the stories we continue to tell in our culture in one way or another. There's a hero who can do things no-one else can do. His story arc is amazing.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""> But Le Guin examines the larger context. She thinks about the other people who are involved and the systems which allow this guy to hero his face off.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""> Her idea is that it isn't just the one person who is responsible for the story, however it is told, but it takes a village to bag a mammoth. And also, let's look and see if the mammoth is actually what sustains them.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""><span> </span>When he brings the mammoth back, it's the community, usually women who process it. Make things out of the skins and sinew, take the meat and cook it. Serve it. Then clean up the dishes. Our hero is resting on his woolly laurels. Also, though he survived, he did go out there with a group. Maybe it was his money shot, but he worked with others to hunt. Also, although scrumptious and eventful, the community actually doesn't survive on mammoth meat. Mostly, they eat nuts, berries, fruit, vegetables. It's the woman and children, the old and less able-bodied who do this vital work of actually feeding the community, in between the rare feasts of mammoths. It's not the hero who raises the children, looks after the old, prepares meals, clothes and tends to the sick. But the people who do this are not usually in the story. What we hear is about the hero and sure, the story is really exciting, but the real action happens with groups of people on the edges of his story, people that he may not even realize are there or are important. It's not the hunters' spear that should be the model for a story or the symbol of essential technology, but the more modest "carrier bag." The carrier bag is the technology which allows the community to gather their nuts and berries and bring them back for everyone.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p></div><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""> These gathering groups of people are constantly sharing stories and knowledge. We can imagine them metaphorically gathering these stories in the bag. The real story is told by a network of people not just one hero with tunnel-vision. It isn't lost on me that the technologies Le Guin mentions— the spear and the carrier bag— are gendered. It reminds me of this little poem by Danish writer Piet Hein that my mother taught me:</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none="">Everything is either concave or convex</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none="">So whatever you dream will be</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none="">Something of sex.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">After writing several books in the then male-dominated world of science fiction, Le Guin went through a process of considering what it was to not be bound by the convention of the single male protagonist, but instead to think about other models. She came up with the "Carrier Bag" theory to speak to this. What if stories didn't replicate the myth of the single male genius but instead included a multiplicity of voices and perspectives? A narrative is really many stories woven together. What if narratives were aware of the default structures in our culture's stories?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Billy-Ray Belcourt's <i>A Minor Chorus</i> is a really beautiful, powerful and smart novel that was published recently. Belcourt is a queer writer from the </span><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none="">Driftpile Cree Nation in northern Alberta. Perhaps it isn't a surprise that he's interested in interrogating the default assumptions of colonial literature, but maybe it's a surprise that the novel was a bestseller. What does it mean? We're ready? I don't know.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""> I think the description from the publisher is very telling with regards to Le Guin's Carrier Bag theory. Here's the description of the novel:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none=""><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i>An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness.<br /><br />What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score.<br /><br />The narrator makes space for those in his orbit to divulge their private joys and miseries, testing the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely... </i>A Minor Chorus <i>is a novel about how deeply entangled the sayable and unsayable can become—and about how ordinary life, when pressed, can produce hauntingly beautiful music.</i></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s2" font-kerning:="" none="">I like that the narrator turns away from his PhD thesis, usually the well-footnoted lovechild of Capitalist patriarchal thinking and enlightenment rationality.</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I also love how "ordinary life can produce hauntingly beautiful music." Powerful stories don't have to be told by mammoth-hunters, but can be told by berrypickers. Stories are conversations. They can include multiple and interconnected perspectives. There's also the issue of how systems enable or silence what is sayable. And writing can come from small towns and from poor people. Stories don't have to be about Hemmingway in Paris punching a bull while catching the world's biggest fish. And along with that, writing can be told in other voices. Any experience can be part of the voices in the writing. Also, while addressing difficult subjects, the description says that Belcourt's book "test[s] the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely." As I've been saying, writing is about seeing our humanity. Even if a story is entirely outside of our experience, it implicitly is humanizing for both its subjects as well as its readers. Le Guin is speaking not only about the content of the world, but, most significantly the assumptions implied in the structure of writing. She's unpacking the implicit systems of knowledge.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> So then there's the old question. "Well, the Nazis, as Germans, had some of the greatest writers and a very sophisticated artistic culture, how come it didn't stop them?"</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I don't think that art is instrumental. By that I mean that it's not like taking medicine. Here, take these two chapters and call me in the morning when you'll be transformed into a beacon of empathy and compassion. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. You can lead a Nazi to Goethe but...</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I'm saying that implicitly writing is an endeavour that is based on a belief in humanity, that encourages thoughtful analysis and an awareness of feeling. It can give voice to voices not otherwise heard or remembered. But still, it must rely on the reader and the greater cultural context. Earlier, I said that the most revolutionary and beneficial goal of literature is to help people attend to what is going on inside them, and to notice what's going on inside others, in a way that—and this is important—that isn't driven or distorted by fear, power or money. Fear, power and money. Toxic ideology. Literature is only one tool in the struggle against these things. It can encourage and sustain those who struggle against those distortions. It can change assumptions, ways of thinking. It can open up conversations, but always it has to fight against the smokescreen of fear and power that make us not see ourselves and others, that render systems of power illegible.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Last night I was listening to an interview with Robert MacFarlane, the English nature writer. He was speaking about language and our co-beings: the supposedly inanimate. There are some places where rivers have been given the rights of citizens and he used the phrase "the river who flowed to the sea." Note his use of "who," a pronoun that indicates that the river isn't an inanimate thing, something neutral from which we can extract resources. He speaks about Robin Wall Kimmerer, who wrote the beautiful Braiding Sweetgrass and her term, "the grammar of animacy," that is, "language use which recognizes and honours the intense and binding reciprocities with which we exist with the living world." We use this language, as Ursula Le Guin puts it "to class [the entire living world] as fellow beings. Kinfolk." Just as we have used language to recognize our various human identities—for example, we now have a choice of appropriate pronouns for ourselves, we can use language to name and change how we see the living world. In speaking of these natural places, we can also listen for what other languages teach us. We can learn what can we do with language to see in a new way.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> This makes me think of how scientists re-imagine the world through equations. Some say, well the math told me that the world must have 22-dimensions, or that Black Holes exist, or even, I'm really in debt. Scientists use the language of math, experimentally, to lead them to new insights about the nature of reality. I'd argue that we can also use the language we speak in this way. By using it experimentally, in new ways, we can uncover and express new nuances of thought & feeling, new ways of being in the world. We can also understand what language isn't telling us, what it is hiding beneath convention.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> *</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Wait a sec. Before I proceed, I just want to check Instagram to see how many likes my last post has gotten.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> But really: We turn on the TV. We go onto Social Media or listen to a podcast. So much of this contemporary discourse simplifies issues. There are the good guys and the bad guys. The good things and the bad things. Reality is much more nuanced and complex. There's often not a continuum from bad to good—puppies, unicorns and rainbows on one side and Nazis and Pipelines on the other. It's really a multidimensional model and though actions may be unequivocally harmful, the humans involved are actually much more dimensional too, their reality is more complex. Our society is quick to reduce people to caricatures, to essentialize issues into simple binaries. Our stories, particularly as represented in politics and popular culture tend to want to group people into black hats and white hats.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> What this does is make people think that they must be one thing or the other and they may feel like no one else shares their conflicted, complicated, nuanced position. They can feel caught in the "if you're not with us, you're against us" divide and perhaps feel unable to speak out for a thoughtful and subtle engagement with issues and an unshakably humane and compassionate consideration of others. To use a contemporary example, It can seem like, You're either with Netanyahu and Israel's current actions or you're antisemitic. You're either in support of Hamas or you're against human rights for Palestinians. I like the Yin Yang symbol with its separation of dark and light but showing a little dark in the light and vice versa. And good literature does this. It refuses to reduce things down to simplistic answers. Sure there are myths which aren't supposed to represent reality but instead are symbolic narratives about the struggle between forces, either moral or psychological , but even they, when you scratch the surface, yield interesting contradictions. Good literature innately opens up the possibility for multiplicity and complexity. It refuses simple continuums, but rather by its very nature insists on a multidimensional matrix of meaning and interpretation. They used to say that certain parts of England were so flat that they could fit through a fax machine. But it's our work as writers to strive for a non-flattened England. A view of the world that has depth.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">*</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Over the last many years, I've participated in collaborations with many writers and artists. It's fun to work with others. I can get outside myself and my usual writing habits. I learn new ways of writing and revising. I can try new things and take risks because I'm not doing it alone. I can develop insights into others' consciousnesses. I can share the blame. It is all about working with others and listening. Listening to them. Listening to the process. Listening to the writing. And moreover, collaboration is also another way to explore alternatives to the hero myth. It is another approach to carrier bag fiction. It decentres the single hero, the idea of the solitary artist creating something out of just his own genius as if all art doesn't stand on the shoulders of giants and the shoulders of non-giants also. People often believe a bunch of supposedly romantic ideas about being an artist—you're tortured, poor, heavy drinking, alone, suffering. But really making art is about being part of a vibrant community of other artists, even if only through their work. You might like to be a bit of a hermit but art isn't about creating things without history or context. It's always implicitly collaborative. There is something sustaining as well as subversive about working together.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> On that subject, a literary career can feel like a zero-sum gain situation. It's you against the world. Someone else's success takes away from your success. Being successful means being better than someone else. I think this is part of a larger systemic issue which comes from a capitalist culture where it's a race to accumulate and hold onto limited resources. But whatever the origin, it's common for writers to feel envious and jealous of others. Paul Quarrington said that "Envy is the writer's black lung disease." I'm even jealous of myself. My first novel is still outselling my latest novel ten-to-one and so when I look at the figures, which I can do daily if I'm really weak, I feel envious of the me who wrote that first novel and depressed on behalf of the author of the more recent novel.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> So what to do about this envy of other writers? Know that it's natural. One of the best ways to deal with it is to take that feeling and use it to help other people in your field. It makes it not all about you and at least you can feel you're doing something valuable and helpful. When I go on social media (it's an envy machine!) and find I feel this way, I post something in support of others'—something about them or their work.<b> </b>I've done something good, it makes me feel better, it gives me something to do with the bad feelings, gives me perspective, and it helps the other person. It is difficult to be an artist. It's easy to feel you're missing out. But this simple act can feel like you're acting in accord with values that aren't about scarcity or competition. It's a small but powerful act.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">` Do you know that story from Scandinavian folklore about Woden and the King of the Trolls. Thor was guarding the world tree but the darkness pressed in all around him and was getting closer and closer since Thor was getting older. Monstrous things in the shadows were getting near. So Woden, the Wisdom god, went out and put the King of the Trolls in an arm lock and asked him, how do I protect myself and the world tree from these horrific forces of darkness? The King of the Trolls said, I'll tell you, but first you have to give me one of your eyes. Ok, Woden said, though he should have known better. And he gave the King of the Trolls one of his eyes. So? he asked the King of the Trolls. Ah, the King of the Trolls said. The secret is to watch with both eyes. I can relate. I often feel that I'm here, keeping back the darkness with only one metaphorical eye.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Here's another thing that I think keeps back the darkness and resists the market's duplicitous promise of success. Do the things that really interest and excite you, not what you think you should be doing. When I decided to write a novel (I was 50), it ended up being narrated by a 500-year-old possibly immortal gay Yiddish-speaking pirate's parrot. My wife said, "Really? People are going to want to read that?" This has been my most successful book in terms of how it has connected with people. But even if other of my books have connected less, I can say that I'm really happy with them. They connected with me. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b> There's an even more fundamental way to keep back the darkness—to keep at least your own centre from falling apart. Ensuring that you are safe, secure, and able to have what Virginia Woolf calls, "a room of one's own" where you have the time and space to create is vital. Whatever that room looks like depends on you. Toni Morrison wrote her first book on the subway. And being healthy, happy, satisfied, looking after yourself, if it's possible for you, is really the best way to keep going, to have a good life, and to create art. Not to be self-satisfied or too artistically comfortable, but to be able to be brave and risk-taking while attending to your human needs. Sometimes writing and a writing careers slithers up to you and tells you if you just give it one of your eyes, everything will work out. But don't listen! It's a trick. The most powerful and subversive thing is to listen to yourself, what is really going on inside you, deeper than the fear and the seductions of the market. Of course, I'm not saying don't find good work, don't try to sell your books, don't explore possibilities. I am saying that, while you might do all of that, don't drink the magical Kool-Aid and believe the siren-song which says your own value depends on producing or market success.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> *</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I'd like to speak about one more thing that has been for me, a way to hold it—all of it—together as a writer. To speak back to the trolls pressing in from the darkness.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I'm a member of Meet the Presses, the collective that ran the Independent Literary Market here at the festival. We also administer the bpNichol Chapbook Prize. I'm proud to be part of the motley array of publishers who support literature that isn't limited by the imperative for profit. I'm not saying that books that earn money can't be important and meaningful, but freed from the necessity to make money, small presses are able to put literature first. It's because of this that bpNichol wrote that "small press is the guardian of literary culture and free speech." It often exemplifies many of the things that I've been talking about. Collaborative, local, sometimes handmade, outside of market forces. Often artisanal in the best way. They focus on individuals at all points along the way. Editions can be very small. An edition of one, or five, or twenty-five so that publishing is taken out of the limitations and necessary cautions of the market. And so these books often are part of a direct dialogue with readers and with community.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I think that small press implicitly thinks of systems because publishing is not a neutral act. It is implicitly political and aesthetic. The publishing is part of the aesthetic of the work, in terms of its look, its distribution, and how the audience interacts with the work, both in terms of reading it, engaging with its writers and publishers, and in how it finds its audience.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Perhaps I ’d use a nature metaphor: commercial writing is writing that is domesticated or harvested in some way. I see the work published by presses as writing in its wild form and its publishers are more a wilderness guides than combine harvesters. Now we're back to gathering berries in carrier bags.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> *</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Since I first encountered them as a teenager, I often think of these lines from American poet Marvin Bell’s “Gemwood.” “Now it seems to me the heart /must enlarge to hold the losses /we have ahead of us.” To me this means that while we must be ready for what the future brings, we must be also be ready for the extent of the losses of the past and present as we continue to learn. Like the universe itself, both past and present never stop expanding. That’s one function of writing. To expand but also to encounter that expansion, those stories.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> So there’s an old joke about when Abe finally meets God and tells him a Holocaust joke. God doesn’t get it. Well, says, Abe, guess you had to be there.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Without parsing the theological implications of that joke, you can see that it is saying what I've been saying in this speech: it is the important and particular role of writers to “be there” – to act as witnesses, as witnesses to the witnesses, and to allow others to “be there,” both now and in the future. And also to be vigilant about that present and that future. So that no one can say they didn’t know, or didn’t notice. About any genocide or persecution. About human experience generally.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I’d like to end with a story about the great poet and resistance fighter, Avram Sutzkever. He found himself being chased by Nazis and having to cross a minefield to escape and, having no idea where the mines were, didn’t know where to step. He decided, because it was as good an idea as any, to put his faith in literature and walk across the minefield in the rhythm of a poem. Miracle of miracles, he made it safely across the field. In an interview he gave years later he said, “Ach, I wish I could remember what the poem was, because it turned out to be a very useful poem.” So there this. Putting one’s faith in the power of literature to give hope, to guide, to surprise and outwit, and to take you through dangerous places. provide a good story, a good punchline, and sometimes, even a happy ending.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "EB Garamond"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><br /><p></p>
gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-30567588683391192842023-06-25T19:48:00.004-04:002023-06-25T19:48:21.678-04:00SIREN<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGCixIHGySBFs8cm6gnX-ntISh5JMgzKQxvOWhvughGaBXCW8V45y1eYFq4I2AruthN7hUyuM9IoCH-ObG2zlXWYUyTVKpkrPPdfGBZW25GSZ6xQ2N2SVfowW2XTBK4PjHOt-M7t2i2oCo3AsiejrgqAr_wHxOSvHkQBZRKfZzu8g1IfvfK2B_fw/s1500/Dream%20of%20Readability2%20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGCixIHGySBFs8cm6gnX-ntISh5JMgzKQxvOWhvughGaBXCW8V45y1eYFq4I2AruthN7hUyuM9IoCH-ObG2zlXWYUyTVKpkrPPdfGBZW25GSZ6xQ2N2SVfowW2XTBK4PjHOt-M7t2i2oCo3AsiejrgqAr_wHxOSvHkQBZRKfZzu8g1IfvfK2B_fw/s320/Dream%20of%20Readability2%20.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>SIREN</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p> </p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>there’s a way to lick</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>a landmine </p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>your tongue inside a war crime</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>so you don’t die</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p> </p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-70993903467441278902023-06-16T11:16:00.002-04:002023-06-16T11:16:56.854-04:00YES, I SAID: Molly's monologue from Joyce's Ulysses (only the letters in "Yes, I said.")<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj45HlnozERIjSec8bPSEeO_CC3LLdgfd6D9L_Hv8E4PZw4SHhhLnfLCoyt2fF8VMrOO32Frl1Kjs4rQxrQBmAsjAJPnZyij5lc8e7D8yI4XuLlYlSKBWT_HgKRu2oqzyieMeI8q84o_nzVAGxMn1nnDuB2ZCDZedi5Xblu5U8kPINMeFXNkWY/s15000/Yes,%20I%20said.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="15000" data-original-width="1661" height="5075" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj45HlnozERIjSec8bPSEeO_CC3LLdgfd6D9L_Hv8E4PZw4SHhhLnfLCoyt2fF8VMrOO32Frl1Kjs4rQxrQBmAsjAJPnZyij5lc8e7D8yI4XuLlYlSKBWT_HgKRu2oqzyieMeI8q84o_nzVAGxMn1nnDuB2ZCDZedi5Xblu5U8kPINMeFXNkWY/w555-h5075/Yes,%20I%20said.jpg" width="555" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-39390697480855124882023-06-04T20:47:00.004-04:002023-06-04T20:47:33.499-04:00 FIRST CONTACT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXpEfMve6EO_WBcMm04C7Dks0kJ6JWBAqCtuA4lmaw5fOFA7URbJwK4QFYqyDTVlTI3AYIrW7z6h_LSfX7BeKaMx4O4ALu7_58MRdaeeJPxrV72LXNCB6s04JaTZOjM80cgkbims4Os3pefm68piX6a6lRYa2v4jB1XkFSse21EFrNWfBXs28/s1024/six%20grannies%201.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXpEfMve6EO_WBcMm04C7Dks0kJ6JWBAqCtuA4lmaw5fOFA7URbJwK4QFYqyDTVlTI3AYIrW7z6h_LSfX7BeKaMx4O4ALu7_58MRdaeeJPxrV72LXNCB6s04JaTZOjM80cgkbims4Os3pefm68piX6a6lRYa2v4jB1XkFSse21EFrNWfBXs28/s320/six%20grannies%201.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Six grannies and a great-granny setting sail in an overloaded rowboat, water just below the gunwales, all in dark dresses and the nearly full moon pearlescent between clouds. A slim man rowing, one of their grandsons, ferrying them to the centre of the lake where a spacecraft hovers low. Violet, crimson, a delicate blue, earth’s sky at sunset. They are there to represent us all before this delegation from space, these grannies and a great-granny, none of them swimmers, crossing the water and speaking low. </p><div>*</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoDY7sNyn2FjEhQpRoRe2VaYWKLmIy3vUfQj-ig6qBKtCUoU46UResmOOD_BZaLenSOVZMTG4ujCcyGzJuhtl1Iyp7BVdecedLZOns4xexPiIKQT3bogvvJtZKlOseakhA-q4A9cwD6VFmmrL83fQ9nil2zdVnSxcECpqhlCPSVG5Qlhshbj0/s1024/six%20grannies%203.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoDY7sNyn2FjEhQpRoRe2VaYWKLmIy3vUfQj-ig6qBKtCUoU46UResmOOD_BZaLenSOVZMTG4ujCcyGzJuhtl1Iyp7BVdecedLZOns4xexPiIKQT3bogvvJtZKlOseakhA-q4A9cwD6VFmmrL83fQ9nil2zdVnSxcECpqhlCPSVG5Qlhshbj0/s320/six%20grannies%203.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>My friend Gregory Betts' essay <a href="https://asignin.space/listening-to-space/?fbclid=IwAR0pYxH0ufjtTNtkHLW2pvxd4F_7zes4gExff1u97qej7OTFX_yrtIr33FQ">Listening to Space</a> about the really fascinating project <a href="https://asignin.space/">A Sign in Space</a> and creating a message in response to the one send from a satellite going past Mars. I was delighted be able to participate with our band TZT in recording an audio response.<br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-24684358478829686342023-05-24T11:24:00.005-04:002023-05-29T15:10:59.027-04:00On Poem Writing with Google Translate and One Eye Closed<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZePsRrTdDKkjYpkPKCb2s0IaUvSjAQKZhnJa-M4toKjKq23RCQbqLAzQdkIccesWw1bX1vMRKu9Rv9rjrOt4AuHBAJVm82dbMY-vx5lb9I6SbqNB0XHcsn7BspJ9_RKZpj209h3JeZA1HPnZqDNb2OSjeWI82l_VtFlmdNSZNReLmgkoqTVU/s1206/Screenshot%202023-05-24%20at%2011.24.17%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1206" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZePsRrTdDKkjYpkPKCb2s0IaUvSjAQKZhnJa-M4toKjKq23RCQbqLAzQdkIccesWw1bX1vMRKu9Rv9rjrOt4AuHBAJVm82dbMY-vx5lb9I6SbqNB0XHcsn7BspJ9_RKZpj209h3JeZA1HPnZqDNb2OSjeWI82l_VtFlmdNSZNReLmgkoqTVU/w359-h250/Screenshot%202023-05-24%20at%2011.24.17%20AM.png" width="359" /></a></div><br /><br />I thought I'd share the process of creating a poem, the draft of which is below. <p></p><p>I came across John Masefield's poem <i>Cargo</i> (which is below, also) and, as I sometimes do, ran it through a number of languages in Google Translate. I imagined it was something like how story or language is transmuted through various cultures as a cultural meme travels.<br /><br />Then I took the raw data translation (below, 2nd) and revised it, mixing in some local and contemporary language (the Starbucks' drink) and thought about a comment I'd made to a friend about poems as being connection machines, how in "the dance of connection, who leads?" so then I added that in, then abstracted that line a bit, making it more oblique. But on consideration, it's clear that that poem isn't satisfying—it's too one-dimension, a one-trick pony—and its meaning is closed rather than open. So I've further edited, rearranging somethings and deleting others so that the poem is more of a word / sight impressionist thing-in-itself. It isn't the greatest poem ever written, or the greatest poem I've written but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. The goal here was to create a prompt, a place to begin, that was rich in suggestion and material, something to work with. I see it as akin to being given a bunch of materials with which to create a sculpture or a collage, and something of the source material remains, if only as a ghostly presence far back in the foggiest regions of the imagination and, as well, that the component materials fire up their own attractions, resonances and energies. Something with which one can work with. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p>DRIVING HOME IN ONTARIO SUN</p><p> </p><p>lion of the lion</p><p>monkey of the lion</p><p> </p><p>sandalwood, amethysts</p><p>Starbucks energy drink</p><p> </p><p>beaches and peaks</p><p>isthmus in Spanish style </p><p> </p><p>I cross the harbour </p><p>is that train driven by a pig?</p><p> </p><p>cars loaded with empty pallets </p><p>bowls of coleslaw</p><div><br /></div><p>*</p><p><br />DANCE</p><p><br /></p><p>a question about distance </p><p>driving home in Ontario sun</p><p><br /></p><p>lion of the lion</p><p>monkey of the lion</p><p><br /></p><p>sandalwood, amethysts</p><p>a Starbucks energy drink</p><p><br /></p><p>beaches and peaks</p><p>an isthmus in Spanish style </p><p><br /></p><p>I cross the harbor </p><p>is that train driven by a pig?</p><p><br /></p><p>cars loaded with empty pallets </p><p>bowls of coleslaw</p><p><br /></p><p>who leads?</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>*</p><p>"something"</p><p><br /></p><p>The question about Nineveh in the distant Ophia,</p><p>Driving home in the Palestinian sun,</p><p>And the lion of the lion,</p><p>And the monkey in the forest,</p><p>Sandalwood, cedar and white wine are sweet.</p><p><br /></p><p>A beautiful Spanish style from the Isthmus,</p><p>See beaches and peaks,</p><p>and many diamonds,</p><p>emerald, amethyst,</p><p>topaz, cinnamon and gold diamonds.</p><p><br /></p><p>British brownies with salty slaw,</p><p>Crossing the harbor on a crazy day in March</p><p>coal storage,</p><p>A train driven by a pig.</p><p>Wood, metal and pallets are cheap.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>'Cargoes'</p><p><br /></p><p>Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,</p><p>Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,</p><p>With a cargo of ivory,</p><p>And apes and peacocks,</p><p>Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.</p><p><br /></p><p>Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,</p><p>Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,</p><p>With a cargo of diamonds,</p><p>Emeralds, amethysts,</p><p>Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,</p><p>Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,</p><p>With a cargo of Tyne coal,</p><p>Road-rails, pig-lead,</p><p>Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.</p><p><br /></p><p>John Masefield</p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-31499395825752918612023-05-17T14:14:00.004-04:002023-05-20T13:11:09.349-04:00The Selected Walks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdOqWrNffpw5qIzua8e16-aej073zamNbyZsz8NoVAMlwxGssXPrWrOtt8XuvgtD-DG0bpIXcFW9JgGcseQJ8mD7cGn5ryvtR8duTRzSMGOkh6MjVM6pwjMnCiBf5laOgkJub_N-v-Fd4lxSfhDyxmCuc4surXObYXGquibgn663J29kAyNqE/s3900/speech%20balloon%20mobius.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3900" data-original-width="3900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdOqWrNffpw5qIzua8e16-aej073zamNbyZsz8NoVAMlwxGssXPrWrOtt8XuvgtD-DG0bpIXcFW9JgGcseQJ8mD7cGn5ryvtR8duTRzSMGOkh6MjVM6pwjMnCiBf5laOgkJub_N-v-Fd4lxSfhDyxmCuc4surXObYXGquibgn663J29kAyNqE/s320/speech%20balloon%20mobius.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>The Selected Walks</p><p>We know now that a walk is not a line of steps releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning...but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of walks, none of them original, blend and clash. </p><p> —after Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”</p><p> </p><p> There’s an intimacy to walking with my dog at night. The dark surrounds us and limits the infinity of space. At night, you can see the shape of the sky as if you were in a vast room, a bell jar bounded by the spangle of stars. </p><p> And unlike with the sun, that blazing brazen Klieg-light, you can have a connection, a one-on-one relationship with the moon. You can look at it. It follows you. It changes shape and colour. Pearl. Silver. Opal. Pus. Semen. Bone. Bloodshot eye, strangely lambent, glowing, translucent. The moon feels personal.</p><p> It’s often said that poets have an obsession with the moon. “I am convinced,” Mary Ruefle writes in Madness, Rack, and Honey, “that the first lyric poem was written at night, and that the moon was witness to the event and that the event was witness to the moon.”</p><p> The moon’s mooniness is numinous. Luminescent. It seems to comment, a celestial Greek chorus, an outer space familiar, yet it is all negative capability, even its bright side seems as unknowable as its dark side. And it has a dark side, always in shadow, lonely, facing into the beyond. “Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent desolation,” Buzz Aldrin said as he stepped onto its surface, again according to Mary Ruefle. The moon is the Other, emotional yet silent. Melancholy. We moon around, become looney. It pulls the ocean onto shore, as if it were a blanket and it was time to sleep, to enter the cave of dream, like a ready O, our open mouth an O, our endless ouroboros dreams, lunar, O-shaped or crescent. But the moon reaches not only tides, but those who menstruate feel its phases or at least share its connection to the month, in poetry anyway. See? I begin thinking about the moon and get carried away.</p><p> We do this a lot, my dog Happy and me, out after midnight, driving into the country to walk through fields or closed conservation areas. The other day, I was struck by the absurd beauty of the scene: Happy sticking his head out the car window, me blasting Mozart’s Requiem as we sped along Highway 5, past the gravel pit, the tractor dealer, the place to buy rocks, the various garden centres and churches along the way. We went for a long walk around the lake as it rained. I put on some Bach.</p><p> I thought, Here I am, just another Jew wandering through the rainy woods in Hamilton Ontario listening to the B minor Mass, feeling frankly glad to live on Planet Earth. I think my mind might explode if I had the additional surprising beauty of another planet to experience. </p><p> *</p><p> Two nerdy walking moments. A few summers ago, walking in the woods, I broke my big toe on a tree root as I listened on headphones to a lecture on by the “Tolkien professor” while wearing Birkenstocks. Though nerdy, perhaps this wasn’t as nerdy as when I was as a teenager, and I’d skip down the trail playing tin whistle and imagining I was an elf.</p><p> *</p><p> A few weeks ago, I was listening to Norwegian folk music and the buzzer on the dryer went off at the exact pitch of the song. Hmm, I thought. That means something. A transcultural time-weaving synchronicity. But it must be that the Sami shaman knew about Maytag, the boxy white-painted ghost roiling my clothes in its hot-Yoga Twister insides.</p><p> </p><p> I can’t help but relate this conjunction-in-the-world to the entanglement of human relations, that judo of interactions over time. So many points of connection—thoughts, actions, correspondences. A complex ecosystem of feelings, observations, reflections, responses. I’m sitting here in the backyard sun with my dad. He’s reading and nodding off, a pleasant afternoon and so I think of our lifelong entanglement, how we have made so many parts of each other. As has happened with all those I love. </p><p>*</p><p> My therapist wonders if it’s safe for me to walk alone at night. He jokes that, “No, it’s ok, Happy, the sheepadoodle is there to protect you.” Maybe the slight possibility of danger is part of it. I’m reminded of that idea in The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy where, since all humanity’s problems have been solved, there’s a process simulating danger (for example, being chased by wild lions) just to motivate you to do basic things, like getting to the bus on time. Sometimes, walking, I’m entirely relaxed, open to the meander of my thoughts and the night, sometimes, there is a frisson of fear which sends alertness to the edges of my body. There’s an energizing vigilance. I’m intensely aware of my privilege in this activity. A white able-bodied man presenting normatively. Also, if I think I hear something, I put on a deep voice and call my dog—with that voice, it’s got to be a pitbull—“Rex.” Happy knows how to use his privilege and present normatively too. There’d be little I could do, in truth, if I were accosted in this closed conservation area out in the country. Happy’s only tool to deal with the unexpected is enthusiasm.</p><p> I have seen only one person out here. Someone in the trees, illicitly camping by a fire. I was once assaulted, however, but it was in the mostly closed part of the mall downtown. Two tall teenagers, one of them skateboarding. It was unusual and I thought it was kind of cool, so I watched the guy riding. I wonder if he thought I was judging him—me, a middle-aged white guy looking at a black kid doing something vaguely forbidden. As he went by, he elbowed me hard into the store window of a Victoria’s Secret. I remember my face in slow motion skidding down the fifteen-foot-tall décolletage of a bra model. I didn’t call the security or the police. Hmm, I thought. It’s like this. Complicated. My ribs were bruised for weeks. I was struck by how much stronger he was than me, that had he chosen to do more, I wouldn’t have been able to resist. Like when my son got jacked as a teenager and would pick me up and move me around the house just because he could and I couldn’t.</p><p> Everywhere I go, I have my phone, an ostensible lifeline. Once I walked through an Icelandic forest (i.e. trees about thirty centimetres tall) in order to climb an inactive volcano. For two or three hours, I was aware that I was out in the wide world without a phone service and that if something happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to call for help and no one knew where I was. I was by myself in the world. Me and the world, making our own unmediated connection. I had a direct line to my environment, my signal didn’t have to travel into space to bounce off a satellite. </p><p> Walking with a dog is another kind of connection. I’m aware of what the dog finds interesting—what they look at, smell, chase. And a man walking alone at night might be creepy or threatening, but a man walking a dog is a man walking a dog and there’s a non-worrisome explanation to his actions. Once I was navigating my way through a blizzard with my dog, no one else out in the storm. An empty bus drove by, stopped and the bus driver offered me and my dog a ride in their container of golden light. Though the absurdity of it appealed to me, the reason we were out walking was…to walk, and so I declined. I was a man walking a dog and so we kept walking.</p><p>*</p><p> I often listen to music or audiobooks while I walk, especially at night if there aren’t any engaging nature sounds, for instance, if I’m wandering neighbourhood streets. There’s a particular intimacy to earphones. Someone is whispering into both your ears—actually, it feels like the sound is in the centre of your brain—your head turned into an amphitheatre—and you carry this secret conversation around with you, an immersive world, you’re under the bell jar of story and sound. And the sound leaves memories in the landscape and so I associate certain places with events in the music or story or a tactile sense of presence mediated through my experience of the sound. “Ah, that thing in that story happened here,” I think when I arrive at a particular bend in the road. “This is that story place.” Narrative and location, story and geography meet. And then, since I will likely listen to other recordings on the same route, sedimentary layers of story and music associated with the same place accrue. A conjunction of events, some real, some fictional, tangling together, my own idiosyncratic psychogeographic neural network. </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>In post-Baroque Western classical music, many works were conceptualized as being narrative, particularly those in sonata form, the emblematic structure of the modern common-practice era, a form that reflects the rationalism of the Enlightenment, something of the Hegelian dialectic with an aspect of the classical syllogism about it, also. The narrative metaphor intensified during the Romantic and late-Romantic era, often made explicit in program music which explicitly “told” stories, often a quest, a there-and-back again journey, beginning in the “home” key with defined melodies and then voyaging into new keys with explorations of melodic and rhythmic ideas, often only fleeting memories of the original material. Then, usually, the music returns home, restating the material in the original (“home”) key. It evokes the hero’s journey, oh we’ve travelled far and returned changed, having learned from the vicissitudes and shifting sands of the adventure. This is very appealing, going to seek one’s fortune, striding out into the world to accumulate wisdom (and wealth and power?) through adventure. </p><p> But that’s not how we experience living—or walking. We move through time and the ostensible teleology of our lives, but memory and history accumulate, double back, break the normative boundaries like a Möbius strip. Mobius strip walks into a bar. Bartender: “What’s wrong?” M. Strip: “I don’t even know where to even begin?”</p><p> Of course, no matter where we go, we encounter the world through the epistemic frame of our own experience, as if we brought our own soundtrack to every knife fight. Walking while listening allows me to see through, let’s say, Bach, for example (or my own experience of Bach.) Each note a jeweler’s loupe, each melody a window, but the windows are double- or triple- glazed, stained glass with the accumulation of what else has been experienced there. </p><p> *</p><p>It's December and I’m in Grade 7 playing 2nd alto saxophone in the Intermediate School Band. We’re playing “Silver Bells.” I can’t recall ever having heard the song, but I found the 2nd alto part very moving. We had the harmony to the “Children laughing, people passing” lyric and I remember the feeling of exquisite tenderness in the downward leap on “laughing,” which then repeated on “passing.” We humans, how vulnerable we are, but how infinitely touching. I also realized that my part gave me instructions on what to feel, what state to inhabit emotionally. Mezzo forte with a delicate little decrescendo to mezzo piano. My middle-school heart was called to experience this intimate human moment as if I were a method actor playing a role. I could merge with all those who felt these big feelings, could be free of my own teenage tube man of emotions, all that absurd gravitas-less twisting and perennial near deflation. From my 2nd alto chair, I could experience the wide range of what it was to be human, even experience emotions that I understood little about or that were outside the experience of a suburban Ottawa teen. Melancholy, joy, nobility, grief, compassion, insouciance, heroism, happiness, resilience, sexiness, courage. All in simplified band arrangements ranging from the theme to Hogan’s Heroes to Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances. And these feelings seemed embodied in the material of the music, the relationship between notes, timbre, dynamics, and tempo. By paying attention to what seemed inherent, to the semantic inner life of the music, by listening to what was there in the world, by inhabiting it fully, the walls of the middle school bandroom fell away and I was in a larger life.</p><p> * I love the syncretic web of experience. Me, a Jewish man in 2023, born in Northern Ireland, listening on an iPhone in a conservation area outside Hamilton, Ontario, to Catholic mass music composed by a Lutheran composer in Leipzig in the mid-18th century and presented to the King of Poland and the Holy Roman Empire’s Elector of Saxony. I imagine trying to explain this to one of my medieval ancestors. But it reminds me of a poem that I once read where Fred and Wilma Flintstone go to the Grand Canyon and send Barney and Betty a postcard. Fred and Wilma don’t think the canyon is a big deal but are mightily impressed by the concept of a postcard.</p><p>*</p><p> 1978. On a tour through Michigan with my high school jazz band, the second trumpeter showed us all this cool new thing he’d bought from a recent trip to New York City. A Sony Walkman. It was a portable audio cassette player with small headphones. I tried it. It astounded me. The sound was entirely inside your head and wherever you walked, you had a soundtrack. This was a revolutionary thing. I’d seen old men—my grandfather included—listen to the news or a ballgame in the park on a portable radio, sometimes using the single earbud provided. You could hear the broadcast but it wasn’t inside your head. But with the Walkman, inside and out were one. Your brain had music right inside it. It was a concert hall. It’s a paradigm shift that has become entirely normalized. Everyone has a phone and most people have earbuds. Audio is portable and we routinely carry around our own soundtrack wherever we go. We don’t need to whistle or sing, which is something external (though some still do, often humorously oblivious.) The sound is inside us and at the same time surrounds us like the dark.</p><p> I went walking with Happy last night. As it was dark and we were in a park, I thought of Charles’ Ives’ composition, Central Park in the Dark, a companion piece to his more famous The Unanswered Question. Ives’ orchestration captures the sound of darkness, the thickness, the sense that one is walking through not an absence but a tactile presence. And above the creeping dark of the strings, mysterious contemplative clarinet and other solo instruments ruminate. (At least until the moment where the unhinged jollity of “Hello, My Baby” intrudes, a moment of monkey mind amid introspection.)</p><p> My park is Churchill Park, a block away from my home. Because of its proximity to Cootes Paradise Marsh and Lake Ontario, the temperature is distinctly colder than the surrounding neighbourhood. The grass is often damp, and deer, having emerged from the adjoining forest, constellate silently in the soccer fields. My last dog, Dude, would sometimes accidently find himself only a meter or so away from a deer and then start in surprise. Happy, on the other hand, spies them from far away them and bolts to chase them and they spring up and dart back into the woods. I’ve been walking in this park for over thirty years, most often taking a circular route. I recall Charles Darwin’s path at the back of his property where he would walk round and round while thinking. The routine of the route apparently helped with his thinking. It was something of a ritual, the expectedness and lack of surprise combined with the steady rhythm of walking freed his mind to wander down other paths, to venture down new neural pathways and follow thoughts wherever they might go. I aspire to such satisfying reverie and sometimes it happens despite the Hello-My-Baby intrusions. </p><p> Last night, I considered how solo walking, especially at night (again I’m aware of my positional privilege in this) is not like being in a bell jar but a diving bell, carrying your own environment with you yet having a connection to the outside—the air tube. It’s ultimately about the self and our connection and individuation from the world. Is it “I am because my little world knows me?” or “I know the world and so I know myself?” Mark Strand: “In a field/I am the absence/of field./…/ We all have reasons/for moving./I move/to keep things whole.” We send out feelers, signals. We echolocate. It’s psy(e)chogeography. We sense the shape of our inner landscape by travelling through the one surrounding us. </p><p> Walking with my dog expands this landscape. I think about how he echolocates, what sense of the world and himself he might experience, how we experience each other—a kind of conceptual leash between us, a dog-human umbilical cord. At night, I walk Happy without a leash so our connection, like Philip Pullman’s daemons in The Golden Compass, is entirely relational, an invisible attractive force between us. We walk in parallel yet always with one eye on the other. </p><p> I quoted Mary Ruefle’s line about the creation of the lyric poem, “the moon was witness to the event and…the event was witness to the moon.” That’s like my dog and me. The world and me. And, walking while wearing headphones, the beginning and end of a Möbius strip made of music, story and imagination. A strange loupe. </p><p> </p><p> </p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-71827646636525588182023-05-14T22:22:00.003-04:002023-05-14T22:22:25.277-04:00Father of Rugs<p><b> </b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwFJDKRgklFnhRTs7CiOudtA3hVo2aiHuty54RyGFwWRpIt4cJ4u2dR8fPlmrfCJkddhYng954ZzBM' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><b><br /></b><p></p><p>Just as a rug is made out of patterns and the patterns form the rug, a story is made of the story it tells. I've been talking to the French/Israeli artist and programmer Ariel Malka, searching for a project for us to collaborate on and he sent me the story (retold after the story below.) I took its patterns, its shadows, the echoes of its telling and wrote another story which is a shadow story and the shadow of the original story. It appears above the story below the story that it is. </p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Father of Rugs </b> </p><p>My father, my ancestor, was kidnapped by shadow. Late in the afternoon, a shadow crept through the window and lay like a carpet on the floor. My father bent down to examine it for though he was a master rug maker, he did not know how to weave darkness. </p><p>As soon as he touched the floor, he was taken, where we did not know. My father was a clever man and over the years of his disappearance, learned the secret of weaving shadows. And so, though he never returned, my sisters, my brothers and me, our children, and our grandchildren, learned also. We saw our father’s patterns stretched across the road, in long shadows near the end of day, the dark woven into his name.<br /><br />_________<br /><br /></p><p>I adapaed the above from the the following old Jewish folk tale (retold through Bard and ChatGPT as prompted by Ariel Malka):<br /><br /></p><p>In the bustling city of Aleppo, Rabbi Elbaz was a master rug maker and a wise sage. One fateful day, a greedy rug seller kidnapped him, forcing him to weave rugs in captivity.</p><p>Under the watchful eye of the cruel rug seller, Rabbi Elbaz hatched a plan. He secretly wove a message into a beautiful rug, pleading for help. When the rug seller displayed it in his shop, a wealthy merchant bought it, captivated by its design.</p><p>At home, the merchant discovered the hidden message and immediately alerted the authorities. They stormed the rug seller's hideout, liberating Rabbi Elbaz.</p><p>Grateful for his rescue, Rabbi Elbaz changed his family name to "Abuhatzeira," meaning "father of rugs." He went on to become a renowned rug maker, forever indebted to the merchant's act of kindness.</p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-5629124738371039602023-05-07T13:08:00.039-04:002023-05-07T13:21:58.292-04:00THE NEW KING<p><br /></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwO7Nz70PwR3gUODXAkDB2FwIvZdw3yIKi-_hzloDMcyAtql_e_sRSBSp9p2vzbhgVMuWt_ftcoTIdQmsFGivpIn-xd7nzqgllIaQpuLzaVeM-aFYuzYHbkQdNTjFOD4dguw5UHZ3BX7W3PzAKon7tRmDnl9bJ_0n3ZhGw6j7DoqYbuv6FqlM/s282/king%20leaf.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="282" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwO7Nz70PwR3gUODXAkDB2FwIvZdw3yIKi-_hzloDMcyAtql_e_sRSBSp9p2vzbhgVMuWt_ftcoTIdQmsFGivpIn-xd7nzqgllIaQpuLzaVeM-aFYuzYHbkQdNTjFOD4dguw5UHZ3BX7W3PzAKon7tRmDnl9bJ_0n3ZhGw6j7DoqYbuv6FqlM/w327-h300/king%20leaf.jpg" width="327" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>One night when you are sleeping, the king will cut through your fields and cut through your forests, he will cut through your bed, and cut through your skin and through your bones and replace your heart with an empty hand. He’ll tie your heart in string as if in an old-fashioned bakery and then he will duck his crowned head under the moon and be gone. Open and closed, open and closed, my empty hand opens and closes throughout the night. It climbs the ladder of my ribs and escapes my mouth. It thinks it is a dove and flies away. In through the window of the palace my empty hand flutters. Across the throneroom my empty hand flaps and around the throat of the king. Open and closed, open and closed around the throat of the king, my hand is no longer empty and somewhere in a distant room, they wake the prince, my brother and cover him with leaves. <br /><br /><br />_____________</p><p>I watched the coronation of King Charles yesterday with my parents. My father remembers watching Queen Elizabeth's coronation as a child in South Africa. What if we crowned a leaf? Made trees our king? Or better, leaves as our elected representative, a river as the head of state. What if winter made legislation, or springtime was the judiciary? Let's make butterflies our police force, an army out of photosynthesis. Not a parliament of fowls, but birds, snakes and mules. What can we learn from a donkey or an eel? Let's make our flag out of mud or else sky, our coat of arms out of ocean. A shield can have tides. A flag can have worms moving through. Let's make the borders of our country out of air, because air is our money and we exchange it only through breath. </p>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-187254640932873842023-04-29T21:29:00.000-04:002023-04-29T21:29:04.003-04:00 CHANGE THINGS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnIcwnKzStznY6BFg4IyFqEKRIEjmAc6oIxpjiphtmmo-qLM08z_hFyIm4v-sFXobPmOtBk0bB8M5RaXAoYdeprfJE0fkhbj9eIYXw7VerSrnkSB6keyDDEMiBYg6UlIjUzqYH7RZLAJKVAoFpbDJxLq4rPKm2iFVjetfsBMuWGgUKGTCeols/s2713/Hebrew%20gimel%20and%20Roman%20C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2713" data-original-width="2544" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnIcwnKzStznY6BFg4IyFqEKRIEjmAc6oIxpjiphtmmo-qLM08z_hFyIm4v-sFXobPmOtBk0bB8M5RaXAoYdeprfJE0fkhbj9eIYXw7VerSrnkSB6keyDDEMiBYg6UlIjUzqYH7RZLAJKVAoFpbDJxLq4rPKm2iFVjetfsBMuWGgUKGTCeols/s320/Hebrew%20gimel%20and%20Roman%20C.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p>Replace pancreas with Prince, liver with Franz Liszt. Substitute Maryland for one lung, a postage stamp for the other. Kidneys: rivers, spine: Rod Stewart. What about the Fortran programming language, mollusks and a square-headed screwdriver? Adrenal gland, urethra, heart. Stomach as an amateur choir. Black rhino as bladder. Someone left a surgical cloth. It’s Beethoven. Extract gallbladder, insert Andromeda Galaxy. Lymph nodes: an AK-15. Bill when done, empty-headed sky, dovecote, wingbeat, penchant for Bronx cheers during coitus, tiny movements of fingers during burial of the young.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyhYCxhM2wi1ecvXaMjIaBbXMKAEEwyrCSIRVrqom3WRAOoqSOQr4LdQAT7FWVpYNm6SxDOWheqXpc' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><p> ________</p><p>image: Hebrew gimel and Roman C</p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-24890372068136864532023-04-23T17:06:00.001-04:002023-04-23T17:06:15.566-04:00If Edwin my eldest brother had ever been born<div><br /></div><div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiqK2eaxTnI95mMUTyQ-nj8q20gUN6OZsM_NNYbx6wwLs37DOEIIesUVER2g8IL4iHGgiy6DLiHLylsDN90XMUL8Yjn9oWRnehQlqXlDpmfMtbZvCk0kmwo74oRD7UGOVJD1mbKi56oWrm7N3y9hDOUrzQAYFW5nMc6fi55uWuH9uUuTBKPng/s2228/fetus%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2228" data-original-width="1588" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiqK2eaxTnI95mMUTyQ-nj8q20gUN6OZsM_NNYbx6wwLs37DOEIIesUVER2g8IL4iHGgiy6DLiHLylsDN90XMUL8Yjn9oWRnehQlqXlDpmfMtbZvCk0kmwo74oRD7UGOVJD1mbKi56oWrm7N3y9hDOUrzQAYFW5nMc6fi55uWuH9uUuTBKPng/w304-h427/fetus%202.jpg" width="304" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></div><div>If Edwin my eldest brother had ever been born, he would have been a year older than me. My father, a medical student, had his study beneath the stairs, his window a basement window and his specimens sealed in jars:</div><div> —a tiny fetus in a translucent sac</div><div> —a small fetus, pale-fisted, white</div><div> —Edwin</div><div> I point him out to my friends. "Look, that's Edwin, my older brother, if he'd been born."</div><div>I think he would have been taller, thinner than me and with short hair. Edwin going before me, growing taller, moving through the neighbourhood. He'd score goals, talk to our neighbours at their side door. I know Dad would have taken Edwin to the golf-driving range, then let him come with to the pub.</div><div> Dad sawed down a club for him in the garage, then taped up the handle, my father showing him how to hold it: line up your thumbs like this, Edwin.</div><div> Down at the other end of the street, "Hey, that's Edwin's younger brother, okay, you' re it, one one-thousand, two."</div><div> A miscarriage. They tried to have Edwin before they had me. It was like he went away to a foreign country and though he was alive, we never saw him, just knew what he was like. And that baby in the jar, was Edwin before he was born, and what he left behind him when our thoughts of Edwin grew bigger.</div><div> I miss him. I think of all the times we could have had, all the things I could have asked him. What would it have been like to have him in the next room with his door open doing homework?</div><div> I don't know what happened to him after we moved to Canada. My father didn't have a study until we moved again and there wasn't a shelf below the window like before.</div><div> I still imagine Edwin back on that shelf with some kids looking in. They go the street and play football until they're called home for supper.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>___________</div><div><br /></div><div>I wrote this text when I was in my late teens and it formed the content of one of my first <i>serif of nottingham </i>chapbooks. My grandfather used to sometimes call me Edwin because that was the name of a kid who lived next door to him in South Africa, where he lived. My father really did have jars of fetuses in his downstairs study, though I suspect they were all animal fetuses. He did have a real human skeleton, though. My mom also did have a miscarriage before me. So, all of these things became mixed together and part of my childhood thoughts which I allowed to freely wander into this story. </div><div><i> </i></div><i> </i>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-84580043567740093932023-04-16T12:22:00.000-04:002023-04-16T12:22:01.980-04:00SPARROW and birds at Cootes Paradise<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IqOX8FDrq1I" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p> </p><p>Because of time, I left my bones outside my body. The future requires no bones. Birds: hollow bones. Me: hollow body. I squeeze through the present and into what hasn’t happened yet. I leave the present behind but bring the past. Tinnitus of the insides, a ringing bell. Hard not to imagine the ears as the plumage of caves. A bird flying from the east, a bird flying from the west, each down the tunnel of an east or west ear, meeting inside. This is the present, more or less as the Venerable Bede wrote about sparrows.</p><p>It seems to me as if you were sitting at your dinner tables warm in the hall, and it rained and it snowed and it hailed and one sparrow came from outside and quickly flew through the hall and it came in through one door and went out through the other. Lo! During the time that he was inside, he was not touched by the storm of the winter. But that is the blink of an eye and the least amount of time, but he immediately comes from winter into winter again. So then this life appears for a short amount of time; what came before or what follows after, we do not know.</p><p>My sister-in-law used to walk beside my father-in-law and out of nowhere say, “I have no bones,” and become floppy, requiring him to hold her up as if she really had no bones. I don’t know what holds me up. Time. Moving forward. The wind going into my ears and telling me things. My head a dining hall for thanes and sparrows. My bones, piled outside in the winter snow, as if enough firewood for only a few days. </p><p>______________</p><p>Translation adapted from <a href="https://thijsporck.com/2020/07/27/from-bede-731-to-bone-1991-2004-a-sparrows-flight-through-the-ages/">https://thijsporck.com/2020/07/27/from-bede-731-to-bone-1991-2004-a-sparrows-flight-through-the-ages/</a></p><div>______________<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ysyifjk3ORU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-13384891365953668672023-04-09T17:51:00.001-04:002023-04-09T17:51:12.860-04:00 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JUDAS<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpx-KKkghQJYzLIBIo9bm-ZNXKQWm4vaYEEY5FalL0gnBBaxi_BCDrHyQ2JF3tiVzTEj0sUEQsiW_AS98zort2JUTEfTKDC9rYaU5vc1-1yT8YJW3z_vbTjz_V-0ikuMhuCGJOHSEMFDLUHQGLL_0Rb4orE02XTyuZzO1Hq4jg4AuejiVoZYo/s750/judas.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="750" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpx-KKkghQJYzLIBIo9bm-ZNXKQWm4vaYEEY5FalL0gnBBaxi_BCDrHyQ2JF3tiVzTEj0sUEQsiW_AS98zort2JUTEfTKDC9rYaU5vc1-1yT8YJW3z_vbTjz_V-0ikuMhuCGJOHSEMFDLUHQGLL_0Rb4orE02XTyuZzO1Hq4jg4AuejiVoZYo/w413-h239/judas.jpeg" width="413" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>The sky is luminous yellow and we’re all at the table with potatoes and wine. Everyone’s arguing and why won’t Jesus overthrow the state?—we don’t need heaven on earth but better civil society. I kissed Him and an otter entered into me and is doing flips. It’s like an orgasm 24/7 in there. This is the secret. There’s an otter inside everyone and it makes them come 24/7 just like the sun and the moon, the stars and all those unexpected holy rivers.</p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-37393340026735501622023-04-02T13:36:00.003-04:002023-04-02T13:36:13.995-04:00The Shamir<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgazPjOSW3UIdmzTi-XBYcdt8rJ11jwliTjvo63o-4FEo5y_CkQnJl6wXMvS1pQmk00JWpyi3GLfNl1vgycvS18Schx2kiINWtV6K17JmmZ3yETERUXLVNr9zWc2z1yKynD0TUdmLk6wiGe_2_aVewtBD7fp3EnkQGRqmxBBaSPhwwo5AUKA5o/s1352/Solomon's_shamir.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1158" data-original-width="1352" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgazPjOSW3UIdmzTi-XBYcdt8rJ11jwliTjvo63o-4FEo5y_CkQnJl6wXMvS1pQmk00JWpyi3GLfNl1vgycvS18Schx2kiINWtV6K17JmmZ3yETERUXLVNr9zWc2z1yKynD0TUdmLk6wiGe_2_aVewtBD7fp3EnkQGRqmxBBaSPhwwo5AUKA5o/w391-h335/Solomon's_shamir.png" width="391" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>The creature, no bigger than a grain of barley, has six eyes and can eat stone. After all, it helped Solomon build the Temple and etch sigils into the priests’ breastplates. But even a tiny creature can peer into the sky. The moon is out but tonight its light is weak and the stars are visible, the vast array of constellations seemingly asking to be connected, each to each, in patterns. Ursa Minor. Orion. Cygnus. The scorpion. The stars are there, or were there, twinkling ruins of what was, of time and the inevitable—inexorable— inconstancy. Ghosts of fusion. </p><p>The creature does not look at the stars but instead fixes its minuscule eyes on the vastness of empty space, that place where there is nothing, or where nothing is visible. In time, even this nothingness will expand. Where is that region of the universe where nothing changes, where there is constancy? In the mind of this creature, there is no place of rest or of certainty. It can conceive of what could be termed Platonic ideals but knows that even ideas fade. Memory. Boundarylessness. Confusion. Death. Temples fall. Emptiness expands. What is distant becomes more distant. Change itself changes. Temple eater, wall biter, chewer of stone, time has a heart and its blood is knotted.</p><div><br /></div><div><br />_______</div><div>More about <a href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Solomon%27s_shamir">The mythical worm that could eat stone and helped Solomon build the temple.</a></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-75331481100392112172023-03-23T11:09:00.005-04:002023-03-23T11:09:34.703-04:00A by Fire<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0_rk7huIS0fcPigZ6CKU6Uen4gd0bcRbOyT9F7FAV-M41erZh7DXrEci5HEujMYyDpCHNGMbdarf20BztgJGUvjgo2HKaEX_qqtFxKySKbJDbtqvZHIEr9dNB2qoILXkrCjMVQJLeOkfwnfBK9l6vvc7u3LHfIF5LOY_qs9ylUSg8qOmih4s/s4032/A%20by%20Fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0_rk7huIS0fcPigZ6CKU6Uen4gd0bcRbOyT9F7FAV-M41erZh7DXrEci5HEujMYyDpCHNGMbdarf20BztgJGUvjgo2HKaEX_qqtFxKySKbJDbtqvZHIEr9dNB2qoILXkrCjMVQJLeOkfwnfBK9l6vvc7u3LHfIF5LOY_qs9ylUSg8qOmih4s/w457-h343/A%20by%20Fire.jpg" width="457" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>Think of a safe place, they said in mindfulness class. Think of a compassionate friend, one who is wise and supportive. I became safe in the red chair by the fire, covered by a blanket knit by my grandmother. Friends, grandparents, spiritual figures, mentors—who would offer compassion, energy, illumination. A huge letter A, tall as a ten-year-old, Times New Roman, black, sat down in the chair on the other side of the fire. Anything is possible, it said. Did light shine like wings around it as if it were a medieval saint—“outer glow” in Photoshop? No, it was crisp as if letterpressed into air. Anything is possible, it repeated and I understood that this A was the beginning, that language meant that I could explore, that it opened the world to possibility as if I could see the bones under the flesh of the world. An energizing breeze blew through the open centre of the world and I felt the same openness in my chest, as if my ribcage had opened like wings. I could see texts undulating in the air around us. The A and I could join these texts, could read these texts, could write them. What gift does this compassionate friend give you? they asked. What do they give you? The A passed me a smaller A, an A that fit into my palm. It was an actual A but it was also all the A’s in all the texts that were possible. We breathed, the A and I, through the open centre of ourselves. </p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-43862753778619058062023-03-12T18:11:00.001-04:002023-03-12T18:11:36.936-04:00Likingkindness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyMt971lIKuvVam3fYj-Uc4Dr9tKL1-iYEsTqnsDde9Fa15qxhp65zNXYNLqvtXmCwSE0JHd660mSwYpyp62BAArO5WdJBlRP635DZF7qxOm2B_tW7m2WYeZqbC572C5nNGkCiZH6Ci_aS8wXaaZjTCzaf7AaFp1LfjR15gWFJwaXhKBKhcTU/s3900/macneice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3900" data-original-width="3900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyMt971lIKuvVam3fYj-Uc4Dr9tKL1-iYEsTqnsDde9Fa15qxhp65zNXYNLqvtXmCwSE0JHd660mSwYpyp62BAArO5WdJBlRP635DZF7qxOm2B_tW7m2WYeZqbC572C5nNGkCiZH6Ci_aS8wXaaZjTCzaf7AaFp1LfjR15gWFJwaXhKBKhcTU/s320/macneice.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p> </p><p>what would you like whispered </p><p>in your ear the rest of </p><p>your however-long-it-is life</p><p>heart light like an open flower or fridge?</p><p> </p><p>the secret to whispering in your own ear is</p><p>face the wind or leap off a cliff </p><p>though it’s hard not to shout</p><p> </p><p>may I know the difference between</p><p>balm and bomb</p><p>especially at the airport</p><p> </p><p>may I know that</p><p>I’d be an ant or a colony of ants</p><p>if I felt more loved</p><p> </p><p>imagine your own ear as a horse’s ear</p><p>long, labial, expressive, </p><p>lilylike across from another ear on the distant side of the long head </p><p> </p><p>may I be imperfectible, blotchy</p><p>waxen as the inside of a horse’s lilylike ear</p><p>when it’s too hard I say</p><p>likingkindness, likingkindness to all things</p><p> </p><p>which season feels the most shame</p><p>is it summer, autumn, fall or winter?</p><p>(see what I did there)?</p><p> </p><p>spring when shame blooms</p><p>ants crawl around your heart</p><p>make you feel like</p><p>ants are crawling around your heart</p><p> </p><p>if I were a horse, what I’d whisper is</p><p>you were never more brown than </p><p>when jockeys told you that thing when you were a foal</p><p>you were never more brown than now</p><p> </p><p> </p><div><br /></div>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24406196.post-81824284167483473782023-03-06T13:01:00.009-05:002023-03-06T20:36:27.431-05:00 LETTER TO YOU AS IF YOU WERE KAFKA<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOGryd4EYVRkye3oIf347-dm1PKnD5BRS_U0AVTxuDaGtcaXhj1_mocnEcfnT34CNfxUz3dG0RGzR3ERcPjBmFZB2PLaQSVKWGiTS89hZQWhNZOvDVQca4eOrW2DlDansoeMFvdl0TFZeaBNXSCIQzRoOattblbykcFZr7pebLUjkdJgvLHYc/s600/torso-miletus-louvre-ma2792_orig.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="393" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOGryd4EYVRkye3oIf347-dm1PKnD5BRS_U0AVTxuDaGtcaXhj1_mocnEcfnT34CNfxUz3dG0RGzR3ERcPjBmFZB2PLaQSVKWGiTS89hZQWhNZOvDVQca4eOrW2DlDansoeMFvdl0TFZeaBNXSCIQzRoOattblbykcFZr7pebLUjkdJgvLHYc/w268-h408/torso-miletus-louvre-ma2792_orig.jpeg" width="268" /></a></div><br /><p>In this letter, I’m going to pretend you are Kafka. Nocturnal. Secretive. Intense. </p><p>Pained yet quietly open to the joy in the world. </p><p>And tonight, I saw—or didn’t see—something which reminded me of you. After midnight as I walked the dog I saw a figure on the path. The forest was blue bright because of the full moon; even the shadows were blue. The dog howled and began to run, but I called him back. I couldn’t tell if the figure was coming towards us or away. We kept walking and the figure appeared to stride off into the trees. Maybe it was a trick of the turning path, but when we rounded the bend, it was gone. The dog nosed disconsolately for a minute then gave up. It was unsettling, alone at night in the woods and this figure appearing seemingly out of nowhere. What was it?</p><p>As I’m writing this, I feel as if I’m missing out on the other writing I could be doing. </p><p>Remember that summer we watched the waves fall onto the shore, the tide coming in, the waves becoming closer and closer, so near to the sandcastles we’d made until you couldn’t stand it and so you ran up to them and smashed them all. </p><p>Kafka wrote a famous letter to his father, filled with bitterness and recrimination. He never sent it, but it’s become posthumously famous since Max Brod saved his friend’s writing from his wished-for-fire. But I like best Kafka’s letters to his partners, such as Milena. There’s often an intimate joy and the sense of loving attention, to the world and to Milena. </p><p>I’m living quite well here, the mortal body could hardly stand more care, the balcony outside my room is sunk into a garden, overgrown and covered with blooming bushes (the vegetation here is strange; in weather cold enough to make the puddles freeze in Prague, blossoms are slowly unfolding before my balcony), moreover this garden receives full sun (or full cloud, as it has for almost a week)—lizards and birds, unlikely couples, come visit me: I would very much like to share Meran with you, recently you wrote about not being able to breathe, that image and its meaning are very close to one another and here both would find a little relief.</p><p>That’s how I would like this letter to feel. Dispensing with protective or habitual distance, if we could speak earnestly and straightforwardly, even if we don’t agree. If it could be based on listening, really seeing each other, and authentic connection. I think so much pain and confusion could be aleviated if we only had the feeling of being seen.</p><p>After returning from the walk, I lay down and dreamt that all of the ink from all the world’s writing was distilled into a vast tank, like liquid night. Then someone was dropped in and their body stained blue as they struggled to breathe. They pressed against the glass as if a desperate sea creature. Later, there was a war and the tank was tipped over and ink floods into the fields and streets. All those words—serifs, ascenders, bowls—released into the world.</p><p>*</p><p>Yesterday, Zoe Whittall posted on Twitter that a friend had reminded her “gay bars used to end the night with three slow songs so we'd go off into the night after swaying around holding each other and I think we should bring back that tradition.”</p><p>And I responded, ‘I think all gatherings, meetings, grocery shopping trips should end this way.” </p><p>I used to be invested in irony and was quite cynical, though I might have said something about engaging in the absurdity and contingency of everything. I’d shy away from direct expression (where is the complicating nuance?) and anything that could smack even slightly of sentimentality. But now I feel like saying “Fuck that shit.” My friend and collaborator Lillian Nećakov and I were discussing why we and many of our peers both are writing about death, and have an interest in “deeper thinking.” Is it the times or our age—sixty or more? </p><p>I believe the hands of the clock are too close to midnight and anyway, this kind of post-ironic honesty is a response to how capitalism erodes our values and sense of self. I’m trying to think without the carapace, to speak from the squishy, undeflecting, unguarded self, hoping that I’m able to withstand whatever the consequences are. I both feel that I’ve been around long enough to be strong enough for it and that I’ve learned from many brave souls, speaking from many places of alterity—queer, disabled, BIPOC—telling what is true for them. </p><p>*</p><p>A wolf in front of me. I wait. A forest grows. A wolf and me and the trees. I wait more. The wolf is bones. I will not be late to the chess game.</p><p>*</p><p>Do I believe that words are enough? Words spoken to you or words written, would they change things, be helpful? Change is more of a process, I believe. The formation of a new pattern. How many days does it take to form a habit. Answer (backed by science!): sixty-six days. (I’m beginning to feel like I’m channeling the second-personing of the letterwriting Rilke.) </p><p>Perhaps a thought finds in way into your thinking and, like a computer virus, begins to replicate, working in the background, making changes that may at first be invisible. The thin edge of a wedge doesn’t break the rock but after some time and some worming, more of the wedge wedges between the rockflesh and splits it (so it “bursts like a star,” to quote Rilke.) A single statement may have echoes. And perhaps the attention, the care, the seeing is the first thing that makes a difference, allows the exchange to take root. A letter is read, maybe only partially, then it is put down. But then picked up again, either literally, or in the mind. </p><p>*</p><p>In his “Archaic Torso of Orpheus,” Rilke exhorts, “You must change your life.” Err, ok. Easy peasy. I’d never thought of that. I’ll change it, right away. Thanks, Rainer. Of course, we wonder “change how?” And rather than just following instructions, the phrase become more active because we consider what it means. If it even is—like I’m doing here—possible to be told to change, as if thinking something can make a more fundamental change possible. But at least for this letter, what comes before this iconic and often motivationally-memed line is important. Translations vary but the point is:</p><p><br /></p><p>for there is no angle from which<br />it cannot see you. <br />You must change your life.</p><p> or</p><p><br /></p><p>for here there is no place<br />that does not see you.<br />You must change your life.</p><p><br /></p><p>The torso of Orpheus sees you wherever and however you are. Is it a shaming gaze mean that you cannot continue to get away with your bullshit? I imagine a judgemental God with an eye like a cue ball, having no pupil, it looks (and judges) in every direction. </p><p>I think it means that “you are seen”—that your being and your experience are witnessed. I love that the torso of this famed Greek figure has no head and so it “sees” in every direction without eyes. It radiates corporeal human life, from one living thing to another. Never mind the cerebral cogitation of rationality, this “being seen” is elemental. It is from this place that the exhortation to “change your life,” comes. From a deep, indeed a fundamental, understanding, of the human condition (and this six-pack Greek demi-God is definitely conditioned!) I’d say from a place of love. An atheist Antinomian grace. You are always already everything.</p><p>It is from this place that I’d like to write this letter to you. The real you, not the Franz Kafka we both needed it to be addressed to. I wish it could beam out in every direction, not in words but with a sense that you are seen. You do not need to change your life, you just need to see it. To see below the white-capped water of its surface and know your innate value. To call yourself beloved, to feel yourself beloved on the earth.</p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p>gary barwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05063921311334434357noreply@blogger.com0