Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Today, we became noticers in a different way than before. We search for meaning, discern trivial acts through notional lives. We turn to artistic practices, interpret tragedy through works of art, embrace a poetics of relation, a way of knowing the world through aesthetic forms. We write, hold on to each word, comfort is momentary.
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Globe and Mail headline: Jubilation Dies.
Jubilation: public rejoicing, a loud utterance of joy in face of silence: as silence wraps tongues to frozen poles, a new language washes over America and the world, colonialist seamless discourse lingers, moves beyond an attack of terrorism, to an act of W-A-R.
From the Oval Office the President says to his people and to the world:
we saw evil the very worst of human nature and we responded with the very best of America through responsible justice security precautions protection of the people. the resolve of our great nation is being tested make no mistake we will show the world we will pass this test.
Test: a word generally used in educational discourse appears in the political arena and weaves a horrific paradox. John Dewey once asked: What is the promise of education? Poet Carl Leggo might reply: Education promises poetic rumination that involves courage of the heart. We reply: We need poetic intervention not retaliation. As history returns to structure its present, language moves in waves across lips and screens as we repeat the words: War on Terrorism. And in New York City, poets reply to horror in poetic forms along city streets, painters seize on canvas what language fails to capture, left in doorways, on walls, moments encapsulated in time, as we learn to make a relationship to an absence.
We (re)interpret our memories and histories in relationship to the images of the burning planes and buildings, construct new selves in relation to the old, the dead, we turn to books, sculptures, paintings, poetic intervention that grips us from inside, a pedagogy of surprise full of unfolding gifts that push boundaries through artistic inquiry, a work of art woven out of complex theories bearing witness to difficult knowledge, life-histories of stories that could not otherwise be told.
Poets respond void of language all their own with unyielding sadness below silent skies. Landmarks, which no longer help children find their way, crumble into memory. Yet through the arts:
Jubilation thrives.