“… I’ve
plagiarized my life
to give you the best
of me & these words” (OV)
Dig
-
20190121_124825 or farthest from myself
“ghosts say funny things when they’re family
[…]
my best words came farthest from myself & it’s awesome” (OV)
-
AG2023_1044486a & it doesn’t work
“write the letter dear you & it doesn’t work so you write the poem” (Ocean Vuong)
-
AG2023_1034271a or beyond constant measure
“more than no more, which seems
much less than hoped-for
[…]
a
forgottentreasure: to live without scrutiny, beyond constant measure”(RD, Lines Composed on the Body Politic: An Accounting)
-
AG2023_1044423a or play it as it comes
“Today’s the day, I can taste it.
[..]
there ain’t nothing I can’t do
[…]
play the rest of the day
as it comes
(RD, Aubade East)
-
AG2023_1034051b and its necessity
“The danger and its necessity focused them, made them calm.” (Toni Morrison, Paradise)
-
AG2023_1044406a
“I’ve long admired photographers/artists, … , who’d write directly on their prints.” Moyra Davey. Exposé·es at Palais de Tokyo.
Moyra Davey, Visitor (detail), 2022. Courtesy of Galerie Buchholz.
-
canopy, late night, nourished dreams of a free territory
Untitled (Suburban canopy, late night) 2018.
“In the context of social death, everyday practices explored the possibility of transfigured existence and cultivated an imagination of the otherwise and elsewhere, cartographies of the fantastic utterly antagonistic to slavery.
[…]
At secret meetings and freedom schools, hidden away in loopholes of retreat and hush arbors, gathered at the river or dwelling in the swamp, the enslaved articulated a vision of freedom that far exceeded that of the liberal imagination. It enabled them to conceive other ways of existing, flee the world of masters and invite its fiery destruction, anticipate the upheaval that would put “the bottom rail on top,” nurture a collective vision of what might be possible when no longer enslaved, and sustain belief in the inevitability of slavery’s demise.
[…]
The arrangement of stars in the night sky, the murmur and echo of songs traveling across a river, the revered objects buried near a prayer tree, the rumors of fugitives in the swamp or maroons in the hills nourished dreams of a free territory, or an existence without masters, or a plot against the plantation, or reveries of miraculous deliverance.” (SH, Scenes of Subjection)
