Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0908011153060.2384@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>,
Cyberculture <cyberculture@zacha.org>
Subject: on a Peace Monument on the Web (fwd)
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 11:53:59 -0400 (EDT)
To the list people - Are you surprised that there is no designated 'peace monument' (PM) on the web? I was. In response, I've created one (that is I've reserved that name-space in trust for those , along with myself, who may wish to steward such a project in the future. The only other option I had was to take my lantern, get on my camel and go rapping on committee doors like some raven of peace. Forgive me, but I really don't have the years left to do that. The barest beginnings of the PM project may be viewed at www.peacemonument.org I have two immediate needs (reasons) for which I'm writing the list - 1. The August 6th opening for the Hiroshima/Nagasaki portal of PM is utterly impossible, but I intend to have something up that I trust will not shame the effort. I need some poems (a dozen, perhaps, for now) that will do something a little more than simply exhume the horrors and antipathy to war (important as those works are). I'm looking for work that somehow reveals something of the why of the matter and more, the unexamined spaces upon which (viscerally and/or visibly) we might begin to puzzle out something of what the last six million years or so has failed to do - how to redo ourselves before we, surely, undo ourselves. Don't know what that is (in verse or art or music or thought) but perhaps we will know it when we see it? I have some Shiraz and Tamura that I am considering. One work by Kakugawa is on the opening page. Suggestions needn't be specifically on those subjects (Hiroshima/Nagasaki, nuclear weapons..., nor on Japanese experiences of the matter. This portal (entire) will be related to the roots of modern weaponry and the removal of all such implements from this planet. (Gort, Barrada Nikto?) (It is planned that this section will also include the stories of victims, art work, discussion, documents and other modes of exposing the subject. But, for the moment, poetry may have to stand the first watch pretty much by itself). 2. The poetry of/for the monument will require some kind of stewarding group to sift, cull, suggest and generally tend to the integration of word and silence into the project. Its a global affair and will require an international group to attend its needs. For that matter, it needn't be solely made up of poets - anthropoligists, linguists, perhaps some with no particular reading in the subject, but who have come a little closer to the subject than most of us would ever care to? I don't know, I'm just winging it. Your suggestions for people who might be good to invite for that role would be much appreciated. That's about it. I have more questions about this project, perhaps, than any of you might. Not in my area of competence, particularly - It just fell in my lap, though I would have preferred it had been someone else's. Till then, doing what I can do, If you have questions/thoughts, email me and I'll try to respond like I know what I'm doing. thanx, Red Slider email: steward@peacemonument.org or, CEAV@ceav.us