Friday, April 8, 2011

long story short

"long story short"


binary of two forces

one force in opposition to another

a multitude of different oppositions

understand the power dynamic

just about anything

share those resources

a cultural bias at work

asserting itself

totalizing itself

homogenized to look this way

differences are papered over

giving the face of something that should be feared

looking at that lens at work

close the borders

try to alleviate

suffering from the disease

as the other or as the same

determine the motivations

lack of education

this is why we help

the notion is transformed

remains in place

establishing what it meant

distinguished itself

define ourselves

a region of the world

imagine one that would not do what he opposes

interconnected as it is

sovereign within its own sphere

we have some kind of obligation

we are going to make judgments

the paradigm through which we think

considered itself the center of the world

there is no homogenous, totalizing group

there is some truth in this

you need to just get used to it

you are born in a world and you can accept it or change it

language is elastic

accidents

mistakes

not the end-all, be-all

the body of work

a major weakness

a system that allows them to come about in a fast manner

you are involved in the process

I am still making decisions

as a matter of form

at some point you have to evaluate me

I think that’s where I’m going

I hope we are able to tie up our loose ends

humor me

pretend you’ve learned something useful



* This is a found spoken word poem which I have composed, courtesy of Professor Shanaysha Sauls of American University and her Contemporary Political Thought class, and reinterpreted from the lecture and discussions in class on April 7th, 2011. The words and sentence fragments themselves, as far as I am able to record them, are accurate and in chronological order, although I have heavily excerpted and fragmented them for poetic quality and themes.

** I would prefer to present the text of this poem in a format which is center-aligned, but I am not sure if this is possible in Blogger.

1 comment:

James said...

Well done, Sir! This is the best! Please bring it to class. Only change I would recommend is to use, "other," as a verb. Sounded like nails on the chalkboard to me every time she did that.