besides thinking

Language is always limited and limiting. It always falls short of what we’re intending. Slavoj Zizek says that “To speak is to tarry with the impossibility of speaking”. It is to recognize that every word we reach for will never reach the totality of all we have hopes of communicating. “[O]nly poetry can do the job”, says Zizek. “[W]hen we cannot say something directly and we nonetheless insist on doing so,” Zizek says that poetry is the very act of inscribing “the impossible into language”.

Writing is always difficult for me for precisely these reasons, and lately my words seem to be especially hard to get to. When that happens I return to poetry, specifically cut-out poetry. So here’s my attempt to put the impossibility of a feeling into speaking.

to announce the conditions - 11x14” collage

the way you expand your now - 5.5x8.5” collage

abstraction that conspires - 9.5x13” collage

May the words you cannot reach always find you.

May the impossible lean close enough to whisper all that you cannot speak.

May poetry hold you when language alone will never do.

In case no one’s told you today, I love you with all my everything.

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P.S. - here’s a scan of my cut-out poem outline:

and a transcription below:

this morning I opened and saw that I was blank
I sit for hours and realize that one days seems to be practically the same as the next day
so here I am
writing
to do something else besides thinking

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P.P.S. - I made a video for my paid subscribes showing the making of the first collage in this post, sharing some recent estate sale finds, and sharing some thoughts on the specialness of collage as a medium. You can find it here.

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P.P.P.S. - all the featured collages are available for purchase here.

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