When rob first asked me to write a post on poetics, I
was thinking about my time recently in Banff, a time of “self-isolation” among
the mountains, among a small group of writers working on our craft.
That idyllic time seems quite distant now. Isolation now
means something very different. So, I write this as I sit, glued to the CBC,
distancing myself from others but also trying to connect to everyone more
deeply, albeit differently.
there is no hand
sanitizer…
and so on and so
forth...
that brings the total
to…
I am reminded, in these times, of the power and
necessity of writing and thinking—and perhaps more importantly, of dreaming. To
create and preserve spaces to think and imagine. When it comes to the role of the
poet, I always come back to the haunting words of Dionne Brand in Inventory:
I have
nothing soothing to tell you
that is
not my job,
my job
is to revise and revise this bristling list,
hourly.
The job of poets is to witness. To record. To list. To
trace our material circuitry and map its winds. With its language of longing
and desire, poetry unsettles the so-called “objectivity” of news reports and
coverage, of statist rhetoric. In its expansive geography, it ruptures borders.
In crisis, it can create spaces for listening. It may not always be comforting.
It might not be what you want to hear. That is not the poet’s job.
trying to get
through…
even if it feels like you’re doing
something…
don’t get psyched,
just get into…
But that doesn’t mean poetry cannot hope or imagine alongside
its witnessing. There is an incredible power in poetry’s allowance for
listening—and there is community to be found and created here also. As bpNichol
writes in his “statement” to Journeying and the Returns:
Poetry is only one of the means by which to reach out and touch the other. The other is emerging as the necessary prerequisite for dialogues with the self that clarify the soul & heart and deepen the ability to love. I place myself there, with them, whoever they are, wherever they are, who seek to reach themselves and the other thru the poem by as many exits and entrances as are possible.
The other is me, is you, is us. In a time of increased
fear of the other, poetry can be a way to invite the other in. In a time of
social distancing, it is a way to proliferate doorways and passageways to lands
that anyone can enter. It can return us to love, to the expanse of being. We
can all meet there.
very aware of the
need to increase our capacity…
number of people coming forward…
quickly evolving and
there is no need to….
So, I’m writing to witness. I’m writing to connect.
I’m writing to dream. I’m making lists. Past archives and future
inventories. Seeing the today and imagining the tomorrow. Building. Travelling
across borders. Listening carefully and feeding back. Inviting you in.
I’ll see you there.
*I’m borrowing the
term “Covidian” from friend and fellow writer M. NourbeSe Philip.
Kate Siklosi lives, writes,
and thinks in Toronto. Her recent work includes five chapbooks of poetry: 6
feuilles (nOIR:Z 2019), 1956 (above/ground press 2019), coup
(The Blasted Tree, 2018), may day (no press, 2018), and po po poems
(above/ground press, 2018). She is also the co-founding editor of Gap Riot Press, a feminist experimental poetry small press.
