|
It’s an unfortunate iron that walks stiffly over us, pressing our clothes.
I miss the comforts of a baggy garment which covers everything while revealing very little.
How do we come to come to speech when language has been stolen from us, when we’ve lost our words? What can words convey, when they belong to the interests of the cultural industry as it serves the interests of commerce, industry, government, warfare.
We’ve lost the word for what connects our public and private selves. Pre-owned words whitewashed and hung out to fade in the sun. It’s a contest where juris-diction is denied. There is no room to plead for the last poet standing. And without standing, we’re left outside.
We are left with a surface, a wax or skin which registers the vague and shifting impressions. In this wax world of malleable, soft, false imitation, distorted surface is the only reality we know. The truth of appearances is that there are only appearances.
How then to say something clear, definite, decisive. How offer any certainty of thought or opinion without bullying the reader, the audience? How make a music out of such unpromising and recalcitrant shifting materials?
The writing in Wax World comes from that condition, explores it, tries to build with that wax, with materials that shift and slide and change even as you use them.
|
