A Rant: On Cynicism, Disgust, Ambivalence, Nihilism, Despair, and the Erasure of Origin

Gary and I are still getting feedback from a few older writers who mistakenly believe that we intended some kind of attack for having framed the Blank Generation forum question in the newsletter before last the way we did, with “out-of-context” [as if a quotation, by its very nature, could be otherwise!] quotations from Ron S. and Lyn H. Ron charged us with “the excision of history” for leaving out the background to his quote. What no one seems to remark on, though, is that there was no editorial position implied in our selection or presentation of those quotes; I would not assert that I necessarily disagree with what either of those writers was saying! I felt fairly accurately indicted by them. (But then I feel indicted by everything, an echo of Jordan’s “mea culpa” — this war’s all my fault, right?) A politics of cynicism and disgust? Yeah! Hello! Look what’s happening! This outrageous stinking bully of a country we live in. Why do you think I left it in the first place?

Yes, cynicism and disgust. “No one pays any attention anyway.” “Ecch.” But not REDUCED to MERELY cynicism and disgust — there’s more to the mix. Denial. for instance: “Wake me up when it’s over.” “It’s not really happening, right?”

[big excision here — things i regret saying]

I’m (clearly) not apolitical but I don’t like politics. I never intended for this blog to be a dedicated political space. But I deeply *deeply* resent — no, I TOTALLY FUCKING HATE the Bush administration for invading not only an undeserving country but also my brain, my sleep, my blog, and my poems, and moreover making me not care about writing poems because at the moment looks like there’s no future to write them down for, and the present is like completely lost. Poor little privileged poetess. Lucky they ain’t bombing yo ass or knocking at the door to arrest you for treason. I suppose they’re waiting until next week.

A thought: the war is about ERASURE of ORIGIN. That is, The cradle of civilization will be the grave of civilization.