Thursday, June 18, 2020

Shannon Webb-Campbell : Two poems





PORTALS


1.    polarities inhabit a body that seeks unity

2.    industry smashes against grand nature, wealth and poverty, health and illness

3.    colours and sound fuse to form spirit

4.    everything supposedly exists in opposition

5.    pivots against intuition

6.    center your feet to remember something we used to know how to do

7.    geometric patterns form in sand, water, and oil to create spirals found in the liver

8.    transformation is the crux of death




HOW THEORY WORKS

Theory is a process of shaming. Theory is harmful. Theory is out of context. Theory avoids emotions. Theory injures. Theory is a toolbox. Theory is a hammer. Theory isn’t about the critic. Theory needs to be accessible. Theory theorizes. Theory should speak to a larger audience. Theory unpacks. Theory needs to be responsible. Theory inhabits a world. Theory creates fields of study. Theory tracks. Theory needs to take ownership. Theory justifies. Theory is a science. Theory is opera. Theory blurs. Theory is a missionary. Theory is finding validity. Theory needs room for elasticity. Theory is emotional. Theory creates jobs for critics. Theory grew up in poverty. Theory entered the academy. Theory isn’t a church. Theory brings pencils. Theory is happening out in the world. Theory takes place in the shower. Theory inhabits. Theory queers. Theory dissects. Theory is not a structural man. Theory is a structural person. Theory is articulation. Theory unpacks. Theory codes. Theory categorizes. Theory is topos. Theory intersects. Theory puts things into boxes. Theory thinks. Theory is how authority works. Theory raises questions among words. Theory emotes. Theory is a function of language. Theory develops. Theory is complicated. Theory understands texts. Theory pivots. Theory questions.  Theory symbolizes. Theory knows the code. Theory situates. Theory is hidden in the story. Theory approaches. Theory is a human process. Theory borrows. Theory is meaning. Theory is a mode of poetics.  Theory responds. Theory believes the whole world is a text. Theory clothes. Theory is possible. Theory shapes. Theory is being named at birth. Theory builds. Theory cracks things open. Theory pushes back. Theory ventures out of the text. Theory bleeds.  Theory decodes. Theory isn’t the value of structure. Theory gifts. Theory is concerned about emotional labour of cats, how their purrs calm us. Theory is renaming. Theory works. Theory has no natural locus. Theory is a kind of kinship. Theory anticipates. Theory is inherently selective. Theory draws. Theory fabricates meanings. Theory plays. Theory echoes patterns. Theory voices. Theory feminizes. Theory is jealousy. Theory parallels. Theory encodes. Theory acts. Theory produces theory. Theory is a meeting between the reader and the text. Theory names. Theory is dichotomy. Theory opens. Theory is praxis. Theory is connective. Theory blooms. Theory ruptures. Theory cockblocks. Theory has consequences. Theory measures. Theory pluralizes. Theory is fashion. Theory is part of the Indigenous context. Theory is when the author isn’t there.

Theory offers a glass of water.





Shannon Webb-Campbell is a mixed Indigenous (Mi’kmaq) settler poet, writer, and critic. Her books include: Still No Word (Breakwater 2015), the recipient of Eagle Canada’s Out in Print Award, and I Am A Body of Land (Book*hug 2019). Shannon holds a MFA in Creative Writing from University of British Columbia, and a MA in English Literature at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, and is a doctoral student at the University of New Brunswick in the Department of English. She is the editor of Visual Arts News Magazine.