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no. 21, january 2008 |
| in collaboration with S p i n e l e s s B o o k s | |
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One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen [?!]. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate--"We lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the sidemeat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket-take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning-from "I" to "we."
—John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
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Anne Lendon Heide & J. Michael Martinez & James Belflower - - - an interactive visual poem Adriana de Barros, Eduardo Recife, and Digitaria - - - by William Walsh & Ulysses by James Joyce (1922) - - - by Vernon Frazer and Michelle Greenblatt - - - Enchanted Me From the Beginning by Tammy Ho & Jeff Zroback - - - The Saran Sisters Discuss Life Sentients by Patsy Alford & Christina Burress - - - Peter Schwartz with Lenka Manning-Warder & Carolyn Adams - - - America Cannot Be Caught Napping by Ilya Ilf & Eugene Petrov
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