and what does dancing have to do with it

OK, my previous post was somewhat all-encompassing; let's bring it back to the locus of the micro-action: the body. The thing you can control most is yourself. Medieval women knew this: your body is a way to simultaneously transcend and experience. And like anything, our experiences begin with our own physical beings. (Cold. Hungry. Uncomfortable. Everything else is incidental & learned, isn't it?)

Body control is a massive thing. Here's some massively awesome video. I can't contain myself when I watch dance; I find parts of my body twitching along with the beat, even though I'm like the worst dancer in the world.

The woman in this Pina Bausch video is incredible. With the lighting, she almost doesn't look real. I am filled with awe when I see this kind of power.

on nuclear power and poetry

Today I am on nuclear power. Der Spiegel says the Japanese disaster could be the end of the nuclear era, of our thinking that nuclear power is safe. My native Finland has four active nuclear reactors, with a fifth scheduled to go live in a couple of years; these are highly productive energetically speaking, and have a good safety record, but I was a little kid in 1986 when Chernobyl exploded next door in the USSR. The effects were wide and long-term. Can we live safely near nuclear power? Clearly we cannot. Is it "clean"? It is highly efficient and has relatively little immediate consequence, but as Bobby pointed out in the conversation we had yesterday, humans haven't been able to build anything that would still remain intact during the half-life decay of our nuclear waste. We can't build anything that would outlive the consequence of our "clean" energy. And if we continue having epic nuke disasters every twenty-five years, well.

So in this world, what should we be writing? In the 90s, Carolyn Forche's poetry of witness called for a "social" space within which to grapple with our disastrous world. Take Nick Flynn's new book, The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands. Is this considered poetry of witness? I find the differentiation between personal, political, and social in Forche's description to be the troubling bit. Flynn's book pulls together references to news headlines, lines from Galway Kinnell and Krishna and Arcade Fire songs and Abu Ghraib testimonials to create a timely portrait that is not apolitical, not apersonal, and not asocial. I guess also the other thing I feel weird about is the passivity of the word "witness," as if it could only take information in and then testify. I think the writer should have a powerful opinion because the writer has a powerful conscience.

So I'm sorry this blog entry is so half-baked, but I guess what I'm asking is how can we write about the space of the world we inhabit, without separating ourselves or the poem from it, without taking a stand after-the-fact and testifying? We live here and work here. What aren't we doing?

a collection of loosely curated links

Burma's generals attempt to prevent revolution by cross-dressing: it's gotta be black magic!!!!!!!

New York Times' nostalgic vision of poetry by Johannes Goransson (at Montevidayo). Oh, NYT. When will you stop disappointing us?

This is a fantastic book: The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse by Lonely Christopher (bonus points for also being a great title to be seen reading on the train, and the cover is so beautiful, with its photograph by Anthony Goicolea).

How to be a woman in a Boys' Club by Molly Lambert (at This Recording). I read this last week. It's so tragic that we have to pander to the boys' club idea but it exists and Lambert has some thoughts being in it... how should I say this? Stylishly and with conscience. (Read also Lambert's post on Fleetwood Mac.)