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Considering Forgiveness
Why forgiveness, and why now? Forgiveness emerges from the pages of this book--the first in a new series that examines political issues through a variety of distinct practices--as a political, psychological and aesthetic strategy. Featuring original essays, interviews, an illustrated poem, storyboards and digital collages by the likes of theorist Julia Kristeva, curator Mark Godfrey and artists Gregg Bordowitz, Omer Fast, Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Considering Forgiveness mines this concept for its political and artistic potential. The book is edited by psychoanalyst and writer Aleksandra Wagner, with Vera List Center Director Carin Kuoni and artist Matthew Buckingham. Subsequent issues will also be edited by a collaborative team of a scholar and an artist.
A practicing psychoanalyst, Wagner is the editor of Cabinet ’s 2008 issue on Shame and the 1994 Sarajevo Survival Guide . Buckingham utilizes photography, film, video, audio, writing and drawing to question the role social memory plays in contemporary life.
A practicing psychoanalyst, Wagner is the editor of Cabinet ’s 2008 issue on Shame and the 1994 Sarajevo Survival Guide . Buckingham utilizes photography, film, video, audio, writing and drawing to question the role social memory plays in contemporary life.
272 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 15, 2023
I don't forgive and I don't forget.
Psychial life needs to continue living, quite simply, without necessarily absolutely ceasing to hate.
Forgiveness can be captive to an anger that has lost its content, yet still wells up from a pool of emotional memory whose depth is beyond measure.
"Dig deep into the tidal insistence,
Make sarcastic corrosive jokes,
Divulge all the pillowy confessions.
How the day in bed alone becomes the time for me to be my passions,
Both verb and noun. Motions and claims.
I am the museum at night when it closes,
The tree whose leaves enfold like insect wings,
A tree in the backyard of long dead relatives.
Pictures are indifferent to your kindness,
They don't return your smiles,
The idle lusts contained within frames.
Testaments, crucifixions, and still lifes,
The space of attention is filled with scents perfumed by bizarre intentions and looks.
Fear cobbles together morbid quotations,
Where imagination, undressed, relents it makes claims in private museums."
--------------------------------
"This poem began with expectations,
To state, if not to solve, some conundrums,
To explore the Baroque on the page.
This required several visits to the museums,
Passing by art of more recent vintage,
Ignoring what modern art engaged.
Spectacular genetic mutations,
The incandescence of nuclear rage,
All of modern life's frustrations.
The optimism of the machine age,
The planet's destruction,
Bottle racks, murders and plagues.
What the moderns predicted, we became,
Torture continues and we suffer aphasia,
Our abstractions are what we cannot sum.
Does poetry have anything to say?
Climate changes and entire species gone,
Forget tomorrow, what about today?
Today? Sunshine possible, can't be sure 'til dawn,
When causality shows no clear chain,
The mind's faculties make predictions.
Heat waves and hurricanes out of season,
Bombs, airport panic, racial selection,
The borders become battlegrounds.
And love is a ridiculous suggestion,
As words no longer connect, we've bound to solitary forms of consumption.
Can I end without a resounding note?
Poetry should offer some condition,
The activity itself shows some hope."
Psychial life needs to continue living, quite simply, without necessarily absolutely ceasing to hate.
Forgiveness can be captive to an anger that has lost its content, yet still wells up from a pool of emotional memory whose depth is beyond measure.
"Dig deep into the tidal insistence,
Make sarcastic corrosive jokes,
Divulge all the pillowy confessions.
How the day in bed alone becomes the time for me to be my passions,
Both verb and noun. Motions and claims.
I am the museum at night when it closes,
The tree whose leaves enfold like insect wings,
A tree in the backyard of long dead relatives.
Pictures are indifferent to your kindness,
They don't return your smiles,
The idle lusts contained within frames.
Testaments, crucifixions, and still lifes,
The space of attention is filled with scents perfumed by bizarre intentions and looks.
Fear cobbles together morbid quotations,
Where imagination, undressed, relents it makes claims in private museums."
--------------------------------
"This poem began with expectations,
To state, if not to solve, some conundrums,
To explore the Baroque on the page.
This required several visits to the museums,
Passing by art of more recent vintage,
Ignoring what modern art engaged.
Spectacular genetic mutations,
The incandescence of nuclear rage,
All of modern life's frustrations.
The optimism of the machine age,
The planet's destruction,
Bottle racks, murders and plagues.
What the moderns predicted, we became,
Torture continues and we suffer aphasia,
Our abstractions are what we cannot sum.
Does poetry have anything to say?
Climate changes and entire species gone,
Forget tomorrow, what about today?
Today? Sunshine possible, can't be sure 'til dawn,
When causality shows no clear chain,
The mind's faculties make predictions.
Heat waves and hurricanes out of season,
Bombs, airport panic, racial selection,
The borders become battlegrounds.
And love is a ridiculous suggestion,
As words no longer connect, we've bound to solitary forms of consumption.
Can I end without a resounding note?
Poetry should offer some condition,
The activity itself shows some hope."
Displaying 1 of 1 review