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Before I go off, I should let you know! I’m doing new things and reading old and new poetry on the topic of The Art of Endings TONITE in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It’s open-mic so if you have thoughts on endings, please come join us, read, sing, weep, grieve, love, hug it up in community.
I’ve been thinking of how the culture of extraction, of taking, of colonization that we find ourselves in at this moment, invades literally everything. I can’t help but see how artists who work and create under conditions manipulated through Zionist motives and profit margins, do not simply have their art corrupted, but more insidiously, the way these artists interact with the outside world and other people also becomes in large part, in service to the art they must keep churning out.
I deeply appreciate Ijeoma Oluo’s honesty on this in their latest post:
I'm writing this from a raw, exhausted place. Writing a book is a beautiful, infuriating, inspiring, rewarding and punishing experience all at once. I can't imagine that many other large, years-long art projects aren't the same. But publishing a book, especially with a major publisher, isn't really a part of the artistic work at all - it is in many ways firmly seated in the antithesis of art: it is an almost purely capitalist enterprise. And for a few months, for the time surrounding what should be the most amazing and one of the most important parts of the creative process - getting that art out to the world and connecting with people while they connect with it - is completely subsumed by the business of bookselling.
I don’t really judge any artist or any person really for what capitalism forces us to do to survive and pay the bills. There is no such thing as “perfect resistance” while living under capitalism, “perfection” is a way to stop us from doing anything about our conditions. What I’m more interested in at this point is how we discern. How do we discern the performance from the actual meat and bones of the thing? How can we discern the performance under capitalism when the artist in question does not even know they are just reacting to a prompt created by a marketing team that only finds the question interesting because of it’s profitability? How can this discernment help us distinguish between pure entertainment, actual truth, and art that at once defies categorization and source to ultimately expand our notion of what is possible. Critically expand our imagination beyond all that borders, capitalism, globalization, and even a certain kind of framing created under academic systems tend to allow for.
I’m thinking these days of writing, how we write outside of extractive relationships. But it extends to other forms of creativity as well. If I have a muse, is that ok? If that muse can consent because we stand in equal relation to each other under existing systems of oppression is that ok? If the muse knows they are being exploited and is ok with it, does that make it ok? What kind of consent makes this kind of extraction ever ok?
It’s an interesting profession or art form, writing is. Because to do it reasonably well imho, we have to be reading other peoples’ work, staying current with what the discourse is, reading both dead and living writers, referencing both modern and older thinking. We are so often repackaging what others have said in our own personal way. The grappling with, referencing of, citing writers, critique of existing ideas —- all that is great and part of what makes cultural or political discourse so exciting.
I’m talking about another thing I’ve experienced and seen happen when you are close to writers who get paid under some of the biggest most violent corporate institutions. A feeling like your every thought and feeling is being recorded, noted, jotted down somewhere to be repackaged into next week’s tweet, essay, or tiktok. To contend with the algorithm and the needs of your employer, you need to constantly be on the lookout for entertainment. For content. Your kids, your mom, your friends, your neighbor it’s all content. We have all seen this before. We watch and love their videos. The model is so easy to fall into. I have fallen into it. It’s an incredibly alluring business model, make art from my existing relationships, an endless source of inspiration.
I love the artistic family making content together. The girl band who are best friends. All of it. I’m also on this side of it all, processing my own shit. Feeling extracted from in multiple relationships, across gender and race, across types of relationships. It’s been a common thread across my entire life. I’m Indian and live in the West2, some could say all I’ve ever known is extraction. That’s what we talk about when we talk about decolonization. That’s why we know exactly what’s happening in Gaza. It’s all we have known in some ways. To unlearn that all you are good for is extraction is not dissimilar to unlearning white supremacy or patriarchy. It’s a painful process. Similarly unlearning an extractive art process is also actual work which first takes a kind of spiritual awakening. An ability to see the true value of people around you outside of their usefulness to you. My friend reminded me of the magic of the ghost pipes which I saved on my tiktok because I fell in love with them.
"…there are so many ways of life that exist outside of power and competition…” The ghost pipes are one example:
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I wish I could only ever write essays filled with questions and vague platitudes, to be honest. Because this is my own personal way of taking a break from the sometimes extractive art of writing. Writing from my personal experience or yours. I mean there is no break from writing from that place truly, but what if I could make it hazy like a damp fog you can’t see the edges of? So it’s just a idea that sits with you like a droplet on your cheek, you can wipe it away or let the feeling of it stay with you. Maybe consider it the next time you try to discern. Maybe it’s gone forever.
What if I refused to extract anything identifiable from anywhere and just leave you with questions, tiktoks, vague ideas, and dreams? What if I left you with nothing at all? What if I simply speculated? What if I wrote simply for the sake of writing, whatever writing meant to me. How useful do I have to be for you to show up. For you to contribute even, with a paid subscription? These are all just questions, meant to tickle and bother you, no pressure. I’m truly asking because I’m curious about it all. But if you feel irked to donate to this project:
What does this have to do with occupation, with genocide, with colonialism? With Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Haiti? Everything. Because as we see in culture, journalism, news orgs, the battle is also being fought on the pages. People are being silenced. Art is disappearing.
We mimic actual exploitation of the land and genocide of peoples in the way we create. We exploit those who cannot get the same deals or access we can. We re-package their words and ideas and cash those checks. We commit cultural genocide by never showing Palestinian artists’ or writers’ work, by only reposting Jewish voices for Palestinians. We have to be better, different than the systems we are working to dismantle. We have to have different ways of moving, different ways of creating, off of the incessant, unceasing timeline of capitalist greed. Our art has to be responsive to our hearts. To people we are in actual relationship with. That means we may not make as much money. That means we may pay for a newsletter that is irregular, a bit inconsistent, says nothing useful sometimes.
I’ll end with this inspirational note to all my artists out there, and also talking to myself. Our success can never truly be dictated by the whims of this genocidal capitalist system, even if you are the golden child one moment, you must have your own standards, or else get lost forever in the endless striving. Endless taking, never content with what you have, always slashing and burning new lands to just conquer more, to have more. But to what end? At what cost? What is the pace that works for you to make what you feel matters?3
I love this by Ijeoma:
Somebody somewhere is drunkenly scribbling a poem on a bar napkin. They are then crumpling it up and leaving it on the table with a $2 tip. The bartender who is sighing at the pathetic tip will pour out the dregs of the poet’s beer and place the glass in the bin. Then she'll scoop up the tip and the napkin. She'll open up the crumpled ball when she sees a bit of writing. She'll read the poem and it will break her heart. Her hands will shake as she pours herself a shot. She'll duck under the bar to down it quickly, so her boss won't see and remind her that she’s not supposed to drink on the clock. Then she'll wipe her eyes and take a deep breath before she pops back up to finish wiping up the drops of beer the drunken poet left behind. "What can I get you?" She'll say to the person who slides into the poet's seat. She'll go about her day. She'll go about the rest of her life. But she won't forget even a single word of that drunken poem. It will be as permanent in her memory as her social security number or even her birthday. Because it has explained to her why her mother never loved her.
That is a successful poem. And it's success will only be measured by the way in which the bartender works to ensure that her kids will never have to find a poem to illustrate the mother-shaped hole in their hearts. By the fact that in writing it and lifting those heavy words off of his soul, the drunken poet was able to sleep a little better that night.
Until I get sick of myself.
But truly Indian do not have to live in the West to be extracted from. It’s still happening on the continent.
again asking myself questions publicly.
Love this 🙏