'What a few people know now is that there are ways of thinking that we don't yet know about'

'What a few people know now is that there are ways of thinking that we don't yet know about. Nothing could be more important or precious than that knowledge, however unborn. The sense of urgency, the spiritual restlessness it engenders cannot be appeased. Surely, it's some of that energy which has spilled over into the radical art of this century. Through its advocacy of silence, reduction, etc., art commits an act of violence upon itself, turning art into a species of auto-manipulation, of conjuring — trying to help bring these new ways of thinking to birth.'

Susan Sontag, 'The Aesthetics of Silence'

To write is to enter into the affirmation of the solitude in which fascination threatens

'To write is to enter into the affirmation of the solitude in which fascination threatens. It is to surrender to the risk of time's absence, where eternal starting over reigns. It is to pass from the first to the third person, so that what happens to me happens to no one, is anonymous insofar as it concerns me, repeats itself in an infinite dispersal. To write is to let fascination rule language. It is to stay in touch, through language, in language, with the absolute milieu where the thing becomes image again, where the image, instead of alluding to some particular feature, becomes an allusion to the featureless, and instead of a form drawn upon absence, becomes the formless presence of this absence, the opaque, empty opening onto that which is when there is no more world, when there is no world yet.'

Maurice Blanchot 'The Space of Literature'

Zong!

M. NourbeSe Philip har skrevet en foruroligende bog - Zong! - en slags poetisk genoptagelse af en aldrig afviklet retssag fra 1781, hvori en skibskaptajn stod anklaget for at have kastet sin 'last' - omkring 150 slaver - overbord for at indkassere forsikringssummen for denne tabte 'ejendom'. Zong! er en slags gravskrift over disse navnløse og stumme skæbner. Digtene udgøres udelukkende af tekster fra retssagen, der her skæres op i enklaver af ord, der svajer hen over siderne og bølger frem og tilbage mellem mening og uforståelighed, og det er altsammen meget flot udtænkt og endnu mere rørende, hvilket man nok får en slags fornemmelse for her i Philips egen oplæsning:

her kan man læse mere om projektet og lige smugkigge lidt på digtene

poetic particle pops

Thylias Moss aka Forkergirl popper partikler og indopererer kaosteori i digte og forklarer en 'limited fork theory' med perlekæder og stort hår i de her helt vilde video poems (video poams):

Og her forklarer Thylias Moss så meget fint det hele selv: