"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty

Posts tagged ‘witness’

Daily Prompt Love <3 Seeking Solace

26 July 2017

The world is in so much pain right now, so much anger, so much fear. If I am not mindful, that collective despair will weigh down on my back, settle ’round my shoulders like a yoke, until it chokes me, and I am become part of the problem, rather than doing what I think I should–choosing light, choosing peace, choosing Love–doing all that I can to be a force for compassion and Love in this world. So I have to make sure that I care for myself, body and spirit. I personally seek solace in the natural world, in my garden.

It reminds me, daily, that we are made not from our successes, but from the narrative of learning embodied in failure, every lush, red tomato now the product of years on my knees, learning, lessons gifted by seeds that did not germinate, rain that did not fall, soil that wasn’t ready, woodlings that wandered in and ate the fruit, reminders of my rent being due, for sharing this space.

Reward, and humility, in equal share, mistakes and losses, the cost of carelessness, the reminder that I own no space alone in my time on this planet, reside always in the garden. But even more, for me, in that small space, dwells possibility. Even in the darkest winter months, I imagine what will come, with spring. I find solace in the garden’s persistent gift, the imagining of an unimaginable future.

Make art about where you find solace. 

abundabce

Daily Prompt Love <3 To Bear Witness

8 June 2017

bear witness

  1.  to show that something exists or is true —+ to His success bears witness to the value of hard work. Rising ticket sales bear witness to the band’s popularity.

  2. formal :  to make a statement saying that one saw or knows something asked to bear witness to the facts She was asked to bear witness at the trial.

Make art about what it means to bear witness. 

Testify

Must Read–and Must See–Monday: Poetry of Witness

 

poetry-of-witness-posterSomething a little different this week: recommending a documentary, Poetry of Witness. Poetry of Witness is a 2015 documentary film directed by Billy Tooma and Anthony Cirilo about the lives of six contemporary poets who have lived through, and survived, extremities such as war, torture, exile, and repression, using poetry to preserve their memories.It debuted October 16, 2015 at the Buffalo International Film Festival.

The film documents the struggle of six contemporary poets who have faced the duress of war, exile, and human rights violations to give voice to their experiences while wrestling with the complex moral quandaries of artistic production, memory, and trauma. The poets: Carolyn Forché (Salvadoran Civil War), Saghi Ghahraman (Iranian Revolution), Fady Joudah (Doctors Without Borders), Claudia Serea (Socialist Republic of Romania), Mario Susko (Bosnian War), and Bruce Weigl (Vietnam War) offer first-person accounts of how their experiences as soldier, activist, doctor, and survivor imprint their poetry as evidence of those conflicts, rather than as representations of them.

Buy Poetry of Witness: The Documentary

A Couple of Suggested Anthologies (there are so many more…)

Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness

Award winning poet Carolyn Forché spent 13 years compiling Against Forgetting: 20th Century Poetry of Witness. It is an exhaustive and illuminating work of breadth, beauty, wisdom and tragedy.

Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, 1500 – 2001

More about the Poetry of Witness

Anthony Cirilo Talks about Poetry of Witness

Carolyn Forché talks about the poetry of witness

Poet Carolyn Forché gathers 500 years of suffering in new anthology

Sandra Beasley: “Flint and Tinder – Understanding the Difference Between ‘Poetry of Witness’ and ‘Documentary Poetics’”

More About Against Forgetting at3Generations

Love y’all. 

Mary

 

 

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