I bring up the current Israeli campaign against Gaza up in particular because I struggle, as I watch the events in Gaza Strip unfold and read Etel Adnan simultaneously, to a find way to reconcile the two through some practical application of her poetics. I do not mean a practical way of reading or addressing the situation in Gaza through Adnan. Nor do I mean a way of witnessing a situation I am too powerlessly removed from and complicit in. What I have found in reading Adnan that does apply, in so far as poetry can be applied in any sense of the word, is her idea of love, that poetry and art are the best routes to love—in particular to an empathetic, political love. Love, for Adnan, is our only way to endure upheaval. It is not sentimental love. It is an ethics that seeks to preserve what we have rather than see it destroyed. It is a particular bravery, too. “Love in all its forms is the most important matter that we will ever face, but also the most dangerous, the most unpredictable, the most maddening,” Adnan writes.“But it is also the only salvation I know of.” Etel Adnan, To Be in a Time of War here: eteladnan/in_the_heart/in_the_heart_excerpt.pdf
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 21:29:03 +0000
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