i wanted to articulate my respect for those who can read in 'horsey ô horsey', a work which possesses a centraliy in my oeuvre & my life especially Christina Kostoula whoee rigor & close reading nourish me, there are other people of course, many, in fact - i want to give thanks
that close reading has nourished me at a moral level but also at a technical level
i read this moment, as a moment of the writing of blue boat & then it being published in france by the most prestigious edition with the counsel of thomas harlan & chris marker. thomas, in fact translated the book. Importantly it was a break with what i had written before & i think like most poets you go from one epistemological rupture to another
it was to have a decisive influence on my focus to work with communities that were under great pressure. having written & accomplished that poem, i knew a challenging work in the community, not charitable work, but tough work demanding a degree of interiority & excellence in these communities that had rarely if ever been demanded, anywhere. what we do at LeDernier Spectateuris i believe a singular experience in europe
horsey ô horsey for me has the same cultural political importance, though today i do not know what time i have left, what is possible to do in that time, from a position where i am lucky to be alive, i have to work speculatively in the same way baruch spinoza worked, i know i am capable of such work
the commentary of others aids that possibility, & that is as it should be, my i is a we & has been for decades, that is clear to anyone who has read my work. the time itself, is a time of great urgency with fascism rearing its ugly head everywhere & to speak of love in the way i do, that is to say of the geography of the body, of the politics of our dreams & desires is an urgent task
the physical state takes all my art & force to create & you without sentiment or melodrama hear the song i am singing, the polyphony being created
the many painters i work with create a very real collaboration thousands of miles of land & sea away but in fact a presence in this studio, so small, that i see worlds that open up the carcass of culture
above all, you witness how my struggle for breath is also love's struggle
that that struggle necessarily places politics in command