I wouldn’t say that I am dreaming of a different world. I am, perhaps, attempting to grasp at something that might save me, and many of us, as strong currents are washing so much away.
The series of poems published as Bridges under the Water, which is complete but will likely find its place in a greater whole, began with “Away from Non-Being.” I forget now why I had picked up my copy of the writings of the Presocratic philosophers and followed the flow of Parmenides’ poem. It’s a nice piece of writing, really, passed on to us from what feels like another world. I more or less remember reading that it was meant to be an introduction to his work: this is not the actual philosophical work or ideas, only a prelude that would allow his interlocutors to grasp his meaning. Yet even this prelude to knowledge and understanding presents its own challenges. Like with the writings of the other philosophers said to be Presocratic, only fragments cited by others made it to us. I could make this into a metaphor for our current situation, but it doesn’t feel immediately helpful to do so.
I did not write fragments, nor did I fragment my writing. But I did not seek unity either. In this, and the other poems that make up the chapbook (written alongside but not with Thales, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles), I spent time with people who wrote about water. I also included Plato himself, through a fragmentary work of his own, Critias, where he shares, likely for the first time, the story of Atlantis. Atlantis is not a utopia, but rather a form of mirror for a past version of Athens, a manner of valuing the Athens that was (supposedly) once a great city-state. In a way then, reading Plato through this poem, I circle back to something that might exist even before his predecessors. Returning to water, as these philosophers did, as my contemporary do as well – Kim Fahner, David Ly, Rita Wong, Fred Wah, Zoë Skoulding – is an ancient gesture. But it doesn’t wash away
It might be closer to the truth to say that I had begun with the poem “On Mobilization,” which appeared in Jay Miller’s Poets against Fascism. a collaborative zine against the canadian alt-right + trucker occupation. I am very concerned about fascism. And an important element of fascism is the elaborate construction of an account of reality that fits around people’s worst fears and fills gaps in knowledge to offer simple explanations. These explanations and this embracing of fears primes people for action and for selective lack of care. Unfortunately, we all have gaps in knowledge, we all hold incredibly powerful fears. And so we can all be mobilized by fascism. I was disgusted, and appalled, by the display on Parliament Hill and across the country, not because of a deep-seated belief in parliamentary democracy and its symbols. No, I was much too aware of the escalation from the “yellow vest” protests and the legitimization of the pre-exisintg hateful discourse online and in small clubs and groups by politicians and the mainstream media who continue to give them platforms. Too aware of the mounting homophobia and transphobia (which finds its way as exasperation in one of the poems, partly as a response to some exchanges I’ve had with a well-known philosopher whom I won’t name here). Too aware that decades of focus on “debate” and “tolerance” are much too easily overturned to protect far-right and fascist movements… all because too little was built.
And then there was the silence. By the time the Convoy took place, the masks were already off – quite literally, as people abandoned the one simple gesture they could make to protect one another, but also as, far from the strange milieux that produced the Convoy, so many revealed their indifference or hatred toward others. As I sit in an airport waiting for my second flight, I am so unbelievably tired of wearing a mask. I truly hate it. I feel the pressure from others to remove it, their looks. But most of all, I am tired of having to adjust my behaviour to keep my child healthy and likely alive. You see, I am incomprehensibly afraid of what an immuno-suppressed person would have to endure should they catch COVID-19. I attempt to transform this fear into care and to encourage others to do the same.
But I’m not about to forgive many people for their behaviour, or now for maintaining the pretense that we are in a “post-COVID” world. This giving up, this eluding of responsibility is not unique to our period, it happened after the last pandemics after all, after wars. I understand that people move on. And I am, too, moving on. Yet I also want to protect something of what we can learn, because this is not the last pandemic that will reach us in the course of our lives. And I want to have a part in orienting my own and our collective movement.
These poems move in a manner that allows me to move as well, not to move on but to move along. They all focus on the flow of water, which generally cannot be stopped (and I’ll have to write a poem about the disasters that dams and levees can create, about pollution, other floods, the work of water defenders, and what goes into cleansing what we’ve understood as cleansing us). The poems begin with what came last to me, the title: there is no water under the bridge for me; quite to the contrary, parts of the social infrastructure that allows us to reach one another across our situations and differences have been submerged, and now we have to find ways to one another across these bodies of water that are new or transformed. Or at least I need to find these ways.
Jérôme Melançon lives in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, Saskatchewan. His most recent poetry collection is En d’sous d’la langue (Prise de parole, 2021). He has also published two books of poetry with Éditions des Plaines, De perdre tes pas (2011) and Quelques pas quelque part (2016), as well as one book of philosophy, La politique dans l’adversité (Metispresses, 2018). He regularly publishes poetry criticism, notably in the online journal periodicities, and his essay on above/ground press' thirty years of activity can be read in Arc Poetry Magazine #101. He has edited books and journal issues, mostly in political philosophy, and keeps publishing academic articles that marginally relate to these poems. He can be found on social media with the handle @lethejerome.
