the surface || mind (poems +++) poet jorie graham
READ friendly fire (excerpt) I had wanted to compose words to speak of this war, but it is unspeakable. One of its most frightening aspects, it seems to me, is the degree to which language is being asked to keep it unspeakable. The degree to which language is being asked to collaborate and make it possible. We have been witnessing the erosion of language in our culture for some time now -language having become primarily a means for sales -of desires, emotions, ideas, identities. The automatic reflex for most of us any longer is to try to go underneath it, underneath the actual words, to find out "what is really going on." Think of it: not through language, but underneath it. Not via our words, but in spite of them. When a language is used against the truth, something terrible begins to happen to its people. These days civilian casualties are "collateral." To bomb something is to "visit" it. And "revisit" it. Something buil...
