Commentaries - January 2017

To recover the everyday

An inventory of absence

Vacant lot: North Minneapolis

“Blackness is speaking: Echo North is an attempt to reflect the sound.” Chaun Webster, poet, publisher, archivist, and graphic designer is creating an oral archive and visual re-mapping of North Minneapolis. The project, which he calls a “ritual of resistance,” is an attempt to re-hear the absent, but not silent, sounds of the neighborhood’s histories of black social life, to hear and offer the stories that the city has failed to archive, failed to record, and failed to recognize.

Rosanne Cash performs Leonard Cohen's 'Democracy'

Rosanne Cash recited the lyrics to Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy” on January 15, 2017, at the PEN-sponsored “Writers Resist” anti-Trump protest on the steps of the New York Public Library. 

It’s coming to America first, 
the cradle of the best and of the worst. 
It’s here they got the range 
and the machinery for change 
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst. 
It’s here the family’s broken 
and its here the lonely say 
that the heart has got to open 
in a fundamental way: 
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. 

Naomi Replansky performs and discusses 'Ceremony'

Naomi Replansky reads and discusses her poem “Ceremony” at the Kelly Writers House in November 2016. Here is more information about the event. Here is a link to the complete video recording of the reading and discussion.

Habib Tengour: 'Maghrebian Surrealism [Essay & Manifesto]'

Translation from French by Pierre Joris

MAGHREBIAN SURREALISM
SURREALISM IN THE MAGHREB
SURREALIST MAGHREB
THE MAGHREBIAN SURREALISTS
MAGHREBIAN SURREALITY
THE SURREALIST REVOLUTION IN THE MAGHREB
SURREALIST MAGHREB PRESS SERVICE
SURREALISM IN THE SERVICE OF THE MAGHREB
Etc.

— Given an audience of intelligent participants
— Into a red chechia without a ponytail place nine ping-pong balls numbered from 1 to 9.
— Shake the chechia for the one minute needed to create silence.
— Draw a ball

Tonya Foster reads 'Techo Aisles' plus Erica Hunt on 'Swarm of Bees in High Court'

©Charles Bernstein (Jan. 8, 2008)

My video of Tonya Foster reading “Techo Aisles” on Feb. 20, 2016: