In his introduction to this Jacket feature, Mark Weiss delves into the literary history of Baja Californian poetry. It is impossible to separate art from history; the growth of a region corresponds to the flourishing of expression, and political occurrences like the increased scrutiny of the borders post-9/11 or Mexico’s Woodstock in ’71 leave a visible trace.
What is a “Linopentametron”? Is it truly possible to scientifically render a poem “impervious to attack by even the most powerful critical tools”? What, exactly, happened between Sappho of Lesbos and Tod?
1999 was a great year for Jacket poets, even if it was a bit of a wild year outside. Some sectors speculated that the Y2K bug would spell the end of the Internet — and the end of Jacket by default — but more than that, the last year of the millennium was a time for reflection. It evoked a sense of nostalgia and a near-obligatory need to look back at the figurative footsteps in the sand. Jacket published issues 6–9 that year (January, April, July, and October), so why not take a moment to look back at the poets who were likewise looking back?
I began this series of commentaries with David Herd’s attempt to find a path through the largely legalistic language of the modern border. Layli Long Soldier covers similar conceptual territory in her brilliant new book Whereas (Graywolf, 2017), but she comes at the border, as it were, from the inside out. Writing from the position of an indigenous (she is Oglala Sioux) addressee of the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans, Long Soldier considers the affective impact of this empty statement as it participates in a long history of linguistic obfuscations and justifications of theft and genocide.
I want to begin this series of commentaries on the Biotariat — a term I will use to explore the coming resistance of “bare life” — by looking at a poetry which directly addresses the legal excision of certain subjects. I have in mind here David Herd’s excellent 2016 Carcanet book Through, which, along with Herd’s organizing and editing of the Refugee Tales project and volumes, constitutes an extensive foray into the violence of borders and the creation and management of the state of exception. Herd explores the interpenetration of spaces and languages of, on the one hand, bordering and exclusion, and on the other, as a grassroots counter-system, spaces and languages of welcome and inclusion — thresholds, commons, and pilgrims’ paths.
'Across the line / Al otro lado'
Poetry of Baja California in 'Jacket' 21
In his introduction to this Jacket feature, Mark Weiss delves into the literary history of Baja Californian poetry. It is impossible to separate art from history; the growth of a region corresponds to the flourishing of expression, and political occurrences like the increased scrutiny of the borders post-9/11 or Mexico’s Woodstock in ’71 leave a visible trace.
Literary humor from the editors of 'Jacket'
What is a “Linopentametron”? Is it truly possible to scientifically render a poem “impervious to attack by even the most powerful critical tools”? What, exactly, happened between Sappho of Lesbos and Tod?
Turn of the century; end of the millennium
A look back at 'Jacket' in 1999
1999 was a great year for Jacket poets, even if it was a bit of a wild year outside. Some sectors speculated that the Y2K bug would spell the end of the Internet — and the end of Jacket by default — but more than that, the last year of the millennium was a time for reflection. It evoked a sense of nostalgia and a near-obligatory need to look back at the figurative footsteps in the sand. Jacket published issues 6–9 that year (January, April, July, and October), so why not take a moment to look back at the poets who were likewise looking back?
Between the Grasses and the Sentence
Layli Long Soldier’s WHEREAS
I began this series of commentaries with David Herd’s attempt to find a path through the largely legalistic language of the modern border. Layli Long Soldier covers similar conceptual territory in her brilliant new book Whereas (Graywolf, 2017), but she comes at the border, as it were, from the inside out. Writing from the position of an indigenous (she is Oglala Sioux) addressee of the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans, Long Soldier considers the affective impact of this empty statement as it participates in a long history of linguistic obfuscations and justifications of theft and genocide.
David Herd: THROUGH the Border
I want to begin this series of commentaries on the Biotariat — a term I will use to explore the coming resistance of “bare life” — by looking at a poetry which directly addresses the legal excision of certain subjects. I have in mind here David Herd’s excellent 2016 Carcanet book Through, which, along with Herd’s organizing and editing of the Refugee Tales project and volumes, constitutes an extensive foray into the violence of borders and the creation and management of the state of exception. Herd explores the interpenetration of spaces and languages of, on the one hand, bordering and exclusion, and on the other, as a grassroots counter-system, spaces and languages of welcome and inclusion — thresholds, commons, and pilgrims’ paths.