Dear all,
I've been very moved by the range, quality, and seriousness of the
inquiries and revelations here in these past weeks. The intensity of the
participants' commitment to exploring these questions posed by Sandy,
Alan and us guests has left me wondering what I can add.
I keep returning to the experience of remorse, which I first mentioned
some time ago. The bitingly anguished regret that often has no basis in
wrongdoing, that is, no precedent (but that doesn't mean no cause) for
which remorse is the appropriate response, is one of those existential
enveloping conditions that swoop down like a weather system but that
feels personal.
Remorse is connected to death, it is a wanting to follow someone into
the grave, a form of survivor guilt. Remorse, etymologically to "bite
again," or "re" in the sense of emphasis, redoubled self-biting, only
one letter (mord) away from death (mort), and a very close letter at
that. Biting oneself as a symptom of mourning or grief. Somehow remorse
is connected to abjection, to "bare life," to stripping away the
comforts of denial, creature comforts that enable a turning-away from
the basic unease and suffering that characterizes our experience of
life. As if we were to blame. Are we?
Remorse is a hangup, a habit, a deceitful friend that tears your flesh
at the first opportunity, just so s/he can comfort you afterwards.
On a different but related note, I read an account of Brian Kim
Stefans's talk at one of the EPoetry conferences, in which he exhorted
epoetry and digital arts to "embrace the dark side." Yes, yes, and yes.
Fewer slick surfaces, more abrasions, more acknowledgment of wounds.
On 10/22/12 8:29 PM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
The fourth week of October's -empyre- discussion will start tomorrow,
continuing with the topic of Pain, Suffering, and Death in the Real
and Virtual. The guest will be Maria Damon. Her biographical
information is below. I've followed Maria's work for a long time, and
it has always amazed me; it has a poetics all its own, brilliant and
surprising.
- Alan
Week 4 - Maria Damon (US)
Maria Damon teaches poetry and poetics at the University of Minnesota.
She
is the author of The Dark End of the Street: Margins in American Vanguard
Poetry and Postliterary America: From Bagel Shop Jazz to Micropoetries,
co-author of several books of poetry and online projects with mIEKAL aND
(Literature Nation, Eros/ion, pleasureTEXTpossession, E.n.t.r.a.n.c.e.d)
and one with Jukka-Pekka Kervinen (Door Marked X), and co-editor, with
Ira
Livingston, of Poetry and Cultural Studies: A Reader.
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
