1. two three four … / what are we fighting for? 2. Is poetry’s role to keep open a human possibility until all may join? Isn’t that what the confounders sought? 3. “Election” means something like the state or act of picking out or choosing. 4. An election illuminates the space between us. 5. “Election” shares the same cognate (Latin eligere) with “elite,” meaning “chosen people,” the adjectival use of which Byron introduced into English in a passage in Don Juan (Canto 13) recounting a party:
With other Countesses of Blank — but rank; At once the “lie” and the “elite” of crowds; Who pass like water filter’d in a tank, All purged and pious from their native clouds …
In the diamond at the heart of the moon: Sixty-nine notes on the US elections, part 1
by Sam Truitt
Sam Truitt
In memory of David Graeber (1961–2020)
1. two three four … / what are we fighting for?
2. Is poetry’s role to keep open a human possibility until all may join? Isn’t that what the confounders sought?
3. “Election” means something like the state or act of picking out or choosing.
4. An election illuminates the space between us.
5. “Election” shares the same cognate (Latin eligere) with “elite,” meaning “chosen people,” the adjectival use of which Byron introduced into English in a passage in Don Juan (Canto 13) recounting a party:
With other Countesses of Blank — but rank;
At once the “lie” and the “elite” of crowds;
Who pass like water filter’d in a tank,
All purged and pious from their native clouds …