seansaboutacity

[seansaboutacity]

#4 AAC - Regret/Loss

what i said to the crying girl

the girl is crying i’m supposed to be looking after her but the only thing being nursed are the tracks of tears running down her face smeared on her cheeks like the rage of war paint

how am i supposed to deal with this and she flares wells up then shudders like a car swept up in a flood her exhaust pipe about to combust

say something i’m supposed to say something it’ll be ok don’t worry hun things get better trust me i know but empty platitudes bounce around her like noises from a slot machine and i’m the tiny penny of her thoughts rolling inside her mind passing by thinking how many times will she try to win a game she’s lost a thousand times

why did they do that it’s always somebody else you think about the most and like second hand smoke she has started to infiltrate my lungs fill my insides with the hurt of loved ones

i stopped saying things then not because i didn’t care or felt cold but felt lost in her river that brooked no confusion or doubt held together by waters that constantly unfold

they say you can’t step in the same river twice and i have only seen this girl cry once and i felt both of us say in our minds

You must change your life

I’m going to write this essay a bit differently this time.

Instead of trying to pull concepts from philosophers, I want to speak more directly on the theme of death by talking about my life experiences and things which really stand out to me of the things I’ve read - which aren’t necessarily from so-called thinkers.

Death is part of the human condition. It’s something that we all have to contend with at least at some point in our lives. It’s a fact - we’re all going to die one day.

But that need not permanently depress us. Because we get to choose how to respond to that fact.

Death impacts our lives even before we reach the last stage of our lives. I’m sure many people have had experiences of loved ones passing away, or know of friends who have. It can a hurtful, crushing experience because it means losing someone and having to imagine what the future will look like without them.

But death can also be turned into a positive experience. When loved ones pass away, many people reflect and think critically about their lives and where they want to go in the future. Or, some choose to be nostalgic about the past and feel grateful about the experiences they’ve shared with a loved one.

Death can also be personal. Take for example near-death experiences. People who have come out of them talk about going through a transformative, pivotal moment in their lives when they tell themselves that they’ll live their lives to the fullest, without regret and trying to live by example.

I’ve personally been interested in death since reading about philosophy because it overshadows so much of what we do in our lives. There’s a real chance for death and the anticipation of death to give us meaning in life - if only we start to explore what it means, and how we respond to it.

More personally, I’ve started to think more about death as I prepare to study abroad. It might sound strange, but going to study abroad feels a bit like preparing for death. Think about the friends I won’t see, the experiences I’ll lose, the time I won’t spend with them. Already I’ve had to say bye to friends who have graduated and it’s bittersweet, to look back on the experiences we’ve had but also the pain they won’t be renewed or filled with extra chapters.

I’ve tried to respond to these pains. I’ve gone on and asked my friends to make leaving videos for me, so I have something to hold onto when I go to China. I’ve also embarked on this poetry project mainly because I wanted to say to all my friends how much I’m going to miss them - and let my literary voice shine through in my poems.

I’m sorry I couldn’t have hung out more with my friends this year. There’s always regret, but this year I have been chasing extra-curriculars and careers, so much it swallowed up my free time and I couldn’t be with friends as much as I wanted to.

Do my friends know how much I love and appreciate them? I really hope they do, and I’ll do anything to make sure I say it loud and clear.

I LOVE YOU GUYS

#regret #loss #aboutacity

[seansaboutacity]

#2 collaboration - Eileen

It’s a great pleasure for me to collaborate with Eileen Gbagbo. Eileen’s been a wonderful friend that I’ve got to know since first year, and ever since she’s inspired me to be creative and write poetry, whilst maintaining a close interest in social justice issues.

I asked Eileen to collaborate with me and write a poem about the theme of ‘desire’.

So without further ado, here is Eileen’s poem followed by discussion:

East London nights 

Last night the Thames flooded  And the underground broke  The sky looked like an iPhone on power saving mode  My room, an influencer’s Friday night.  We drank sangria and sung fuck Boris  Two times and louder for the people at the back -  Ha, we were going to hell. 

Buttons flung off in iambs Our tongues danced in trochees  And thus began our descent.  One thousand and one nights of seven sensual sins  Feeding on insatiable desire,  uncontrollable explosion,  excessive pursuit of the erogenous  with sloth like strokes  your personal became my prerogative  shea butter breasts for your indulgence  we came to the flames like Icarus –  pray for us, that was devilish.

Comments

My first impression of the poem is a hedonistic, pleasure-seeking vibe. How do you relate this with your ideas of desire?

Desire is such a primal thing and it manifests itself in lust, jealousy etc. So when I was thinking about this poem, it reminded me of Dante’s seven steps to hell and so just took it to the extreme. 

Straight off the bat, you use the imagery of the Thames. It’s a funny coincidence that I also mention the Thames in my poem - before I even saw yours. What did you intend by using the Thames as imagery?

Haha yeah, when I read yours, I got so excited by the Thames imagery! There are many iconic things about London to tourists, but for the locals, we’ve got the Thames - which is great. It’s a source of regional pride even though its quite possibly one of the most unstable rivers in the UK. And so, using the Thames was to root down the sense of place but also set the feel of the poem as quite messy.

I feel like I’m in the scene when I read your poem - the rowdiness, drunkenness, chaos. What do you think poetry can do to capture the experience of being somewhere? Are there limits to this?

This is quite an interesting question. Because my favourite poems through history have been used as a form of resistance, and they have endured and are still relevant today because of the intricate ability to abstract individuality and create consonance between the subject(s) and reader of the poems. For example, Pablo Neruda in his later political poetry does this so well. But there are also limits. Language does have boundaries unfortunately and so it can never be truly universal.

I love the juxtaposition between swearing and drawing on ‘high culture’ like Icarus - it’s rude, in your face but flows. It’s like your breaking down distinctions between high and low culture - anyone’s welcome in poetry. What do you think about that?

There’s something seductive about ‘high culture’ which I think is quite interesting. It’s almost like in Hollywood movies when everyone’s attracted to the British guy that speaks like the queen and uses unnecessary posh lexicon. But it’s funny that London actually invites you to both simultaneously. Take LSE for example, you have some of the world’s most brilliant minds interacting with each other, dissecting complex theories, but on a Wednesday night, we go to Zoo. And so, poetry that doesn’t encompass all of that is quite reductive.

My poem on the theme of ‘desire’:

waterloo bridge, after sunset

I think I'm going to fly why else do my legs feel like wings better yet birds unfurling flapping in the gusts of wind in the afternoon we played with the plain ignorance of friends under the table the same legs had whispered secrets told stories folded flipped over like chopsticks dividing dishes into bites of food

look at the Thames at dusk the water looks oily and slick like the collar of your leather jacket but you are more slick my oil that greases wheels no abandons them like stabilisers on a child's bicycle

do you know how I’ve longed for this for longer nights my days spent chasing faraway sights or snatches of air now my wind you could take me away roll me into tumbleweed but one cleansed of dust swept up from the past

so take me away dark waters you fill me as we cross into Waterloo the sun replaced by the twilight blue

let strange things come out to play at night

Comments

First of all, I love your poem! I love the use of both natural and quite industrial imagery. What did you intend with this?

Thank you! I like to use both natural and industrial imagery because I think London is made up of both - you can see big skyscrapers right next to residential areas or green space, which makes London so unique as a mix of influences.

I think ultimately London’s messy that way - London’s really a big town which swallowed up surrounding areas in an unplanned way, so different parts of London still retain their original character.

Your poem on desire is so different from mine, what was your interpretation of the theme, and what inspired this reaction? And also, the imagery of Waterloo bridge… I don't think I've ever seen it that calm before, but you also transported me into that world. Why did you use perhaps a not so popular image of Waterloo bridge?

I think desire is a very personal experience for me. But I wanted to explore the contradiction of having such intimate and sensitive feelings shared with someone else, and it removes the distance and detachment we sometimes feel from others.

Waterloo bridge served firstly as a physical reminder that the narrator in the poem is crossing boundaries, and for him it’s an exhilarating experience. I think I’m trying to reclaim some personal identity from how anonymising living in London can feel. Waterloo bridge is crossed by hundreds if not thousands of commuters everyday who stay strangers to us living their own lives. Being able to narrate a personal story means resisting that anonymity, and how it can whitewash our experiences into something dull and functional. But there’s also some vulnerability, because the anonymity can feel overwhelming and drowning.

I didn’t notice the calmness actually - that wasn’t intended. But thinking about it that way, I think I wanted the poem to be centred on the narrator’s experiences - so perhaps the exterior calmness contrasted with how wild his inner emotions were.

General comments

Sean asking questions for Eileen:

We first met each other, I think, in our political theory class. There’s an idea generally in social sciences that we can’t be subjective, but Plato and other theorists regularly use metaphoric analogies like Plato’s cave. What do you think about the distinction between objective and subjective?

I think trying to achieve objectivity is so hard and not worth it. The human experience is too varied to try and form some order to truth or justice etc. This really goes back to the production of knowledge which is hierarchical and colonial and so even with something that we claim to be universally true like ‘Shakespeare is the greatest English writer of all time’, is actually enforced by the powerful. So personally, I think we must do more to celebrate the individual rather than seeking this optimal collective objectiveness. Because by doing so, we don’t run the risk of erasing histories and identities in favour of one which is no more universal than the other. I guess that’s why I like poetry as a medium because it gives you the freedom to do both in such an intricate way.

I’ve also written a piece for Black History Month for the Beaver - which you did an amazing job editing. I wrote about the intersection between race and sexuality, using the film Moonlight to help illuminate my ideas. What are your thoughts on the intersection between gender, race and sexuality?

I absolutely loved your piece! It was one of the best reviews and commentary on the film I've read. I think I should ask you this question, because nothing I could say would be as nuanced as what you wrote.

I had a discussion with friends about ‘when do become a man/woman’. I had initially thought that it was a combination of physical and societal factors, ie you go through puberty and you are now considered a woman, or you have certain mannerisms which are gendered as feminine. But actually, that's still quite binary and not universal at all. So, I’m still learning more about these intersections.

Sometimes I’ve found it hard to connect my cultural interests with my political interests - I could watch a really interesting movie which comments on society like Moonlight, but find it hard to make a difference in the real world afterwards. What do you think about doing social activism in cultural interests?

Me too! Social activism is quite fulfilling personally. Especially if it is an issue that is close to home, but you find yourself in the privileged position to offer help. And this can take various forms including protesting, writing think pieces, mentoring, to name a few. But I think we need to tread carefully and evaluate the sentiments behind our convictions to go ahead with social activism in cultural interests. Or else, we run the risk of becoming compassion fatigued, in which we are outraged by an issue because its close to home or we can empathise, and then we pursue activism only to pat ourselves on the back or to make us feel better. I think that is quite dangerous and unsustainable really. 

You write poetry yourself, and you showed me through your work that you can be creative, but also passionate and political about what you write. What’s the next step for you with poetry or creative writing?

Thank you! Your poetry is incredible too. For me, I want to perform more. But in terms of writing, I am experimenting with poetry from the Ghana & the Volta region. So using more Ewe and incorporating more historical knowledge into poetry. I’m really excited!

Eileen’s questions for Sean:

When we first spoke about this project, you mentioned ‘sense of place’. What do you love about London and why did you want to capture that?

My first answer is a cynical one. I love London because I don’t know anything else. I’ve grown up in London from a really small age and I’ve studied at uni here for two years. Now I’m leaving London to study abroad, even though I know I’m coming back, I feel emotional and feel like this is the end of a chapter for me.

My friends have really helped to make my experience in London. The crucial thing is that they chose to be my friends, and so stay there with me through thick and thin. I’ve been through difficult times at uni, navigating and generally trying to ‘adult’. But it’s been so comforting to know that my friends are there - and I could never express sufficiently enough how grateful I am for that.

Maybe this poetry project is a nice leaving gift for London, and for my friends. It’s really my way of saying goodbye. I hope you enjoy!

In the creative field, there is a lot of talk about representation. What are your thoughts on this, and where do you think poetry can fit in?

I think representation is so important. I think there has to be representation everywhere - on screen, but also decision-makers and people at the top. I think there has to be a whole cultural shift where we have everyone’s stories being told and represented, so audiences can see themselves and feel included in the things they see.

With that said, I think there’s a limit. I think discussion about representation can make us ignore wider structural change that we should see in society. If we limit discussion of social change to cultural issues, then we could construct an us v them dynamic, which is counter-intuitive to the cause of social diversity if we imagine our differences as rooted in fixed or essential characteristics. When I think about social problems, I try to find a common-denominator solution - what would make everyone happy? And I think the case for representation is that it would help to lift up under-represented social groups onto an equitable level with traditionally over-represented groups. I recognise this approach might seem reductive and smooth over historic social divisions which continue to disadvantage minority groups. But we should agree on one thing - diversity is the future, so the challenge and the opportunity now is to figure out how to harness it, so that everyone feels like they belong in society.

Poetry’s seeing a revival. I’m excited about getting more involved in it. I think friends like you and who I’ve collaborated with have really helped to boost my confidence and make me think seriously about doing poetry more in the future. I don’t think my story’s been told before, and that’s really sad if people from similar ethnic or cultural backgrounds as me are funnelled into careers their parents want them to do without really exploring alternative creative stuff. So I’m happy to just show up and speak up. And things happen if they will. It reminds me of a quote from my favourite book called ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho - if you want something, the world conspires to help you get it.

I would love to hear more about your thoughts on the intersection between race, gender and sexuality?

That’s a really big question!

I think conversations about it relate with intersectionality. It’s so important to keep highlighting intersectionality, how inter-connected disadvantages or social groups can be.

But I think there’s a chance to restore agency to individuals who share minority status in multiple categories. I think sometimes social categories can be reductive, like figuring out how oppressed you are becomes this social arithmetic.

But we should remind ourselves that these terms are nominal anyway - they’re socially constructed, to sound like a broken record. So while we should be aware of different ways we can socially relate with others, we shouldn’t feel held back by these terms either from stopping us from doing what we want to do in life. The danger is that if we define ourselves solely by these labels, we put ourselves in boxes and fix ourselves, allowing these labels to become a self-fulfilling prophecy if we perform to their expectations.

I think we should feel empowered by our social identities. We should balance two needs fulfilled by them - to feel solidarity with people with similar grievances, but to build the emotional resilience to be ourselves and resist conforming with others.

But specifically about sexuality? I think I’ve been interested in sexuality because it crosses the public/private dichotomy, the interior/exterior dichotomy which many of our social institutions are built on. Sexuality is subversive, radical and it can be transformative - it has the potential to be a creative and productive force in society if we relaxed our attitudes towards it.

For me, sexuality is like a Mobius strip. You walk along it long enough and you eventually talk about other issues, like politics, family or the economy. Sex is constructive of many discourses of power. And power runs through everything.

I’m so excited about your writing journey! Where did it begin and where are you hoping to take it to next?

Thank you!

It began really when I was a small child in primary school. I was really shy growing up and I would read a lot of books. As a child, I even wanted to grow up and become an author. I didn’t write poems but I wrote short stories and even a novel which wasn’t any good but was nice trying to write.

I don’t know where I’ll go with my writing! The most challenging but most exciting part of writing is that I pull a lot of it from my life experiences. I feel like the more I test myself with life experiences and learn who I am from them, the more I have to say in my writing. And that annoys me because I get bored of writing and feel like I run out of things to say, but it excites me because it tells me to get out in the world more and explore.

Put it this way - life is a journey, and writing is just a way of putting my experiences on the road on paper. I’ve got a long way to go, but it definitely feels like I’m getting there.

#collaboration #desire

[seansaboutacity]

#3 AAC - Ambiguity/Ambivalence

he visits me

he visits me spirit from another world wears water on his skin like scales that harden into sharp teeth

but he visits me like possession my body his compass my mind his harbour where ships unmoored spiral into the madness of dark waters

and he visits me soaring sail flapping striking buffeting winds makes warm places feel the damp cave of strange

he visits me but i practise the forgetting his inevitable passing that like parting hands both touches and separates

visible and invisible i start to lose sight of everything i know

In this essay, I want to discuss how ambiguity and ambivalence undermine moral certainty and challenge whether it is possible to make pure ethical decisions. I ask if we should move towards a situation where ambiguity and ambivalence is minimised, or if it is helpful and can be used productively to think critically about the world and help us to change it towards a better ideal.

Ambiguity concerns how we think about a situation while ambivalence describes our emotional response to it. Both create uncertainty - and in an environment of misinformation, distrust and suspicion, insecurity spreads and leads to a fragmented society of atomised individuals.

Given this, this suggests that ambiguity and ambivalence are harmful to a productive, integrated society.

But perhaps it indicates a greater psychoanalytic dynamic - that the world is made up of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ moral forces (normative terms) which come together to create an immanent dynamic.

I have personally felt frustrated by the inability to do more and make sure that I practise what I preach. I have found it hard especially at university to make the ideals I started off with something of a reality. It’s why I keep returning to a quote shared by Barack Obama in his memoirs, that university is a training course in compromise. For good or for worse, university helps to initiate you into adult life and the challenges it poses, like being able to work in a team, work on one’s career, and feel slowly that your original ideals are overtaken by the crush of greater societal forces.

Idealism offers purity which is uncontaminated by the immanent forces of reality. I’ve looked for understanding and alternative perspective in theory so much sometimes it has distracted me from the real work of social theory - helping to change the world, towards realising the ideals of freedom, equality and justice.

I think ambiguity and ambivalence is potentially more harmful considering how we can recognise aspects of it in ourselves, in our nature. We’re fallible creatures, we have done wrong in the past and continue to do so in the present. It has sometimes made me feel defeated and lose confidence in myself, something I regret especially when I am responsible for others and feel like I have a special duty to keep up my morale.

I lament living in today’s society when opportunities to explore or express ourselves feel dried up or hard to find, not obvious in the everyday discussion of careers and eventually going on to start a family. I think we have a special responsibility as university students to do this, so that when we grow up as adults we can formulate an alternative to the status quo today which exploits, marginalises and leaves behind the excluded in society.

I feel led by the example of others, and I think that morality is ultimately just the sum of ethical actions one practises in the world. It embeds us in society, and is the making of who we are as moral persons, with free agency to make choices and do better for each other in society. We should measure ourselves not just by how we treat ourselves and how treat others, and understand that we live in a society, led by cooperative, egalitarian values not selfish competition.

Even if these values are the guiding star that help me navigate the world I live in, I understand that reality is something different. But those same ideals make the pain and suffering I see in the world meaningful, and maybe that’s where I hope I can make an impact in the world.

#ambiguityambivalence #AAC

[seansaboutacity]

#2 AAC - Masquerade

i’m sorry but i really got to break you

i’m sorry but i really got to break you i mean break it to you firstly how are you doing great OK because your work needs to be more than OK like what is this stop saying trying just do it when i was young my mum taught me this she was way stricter on me like this no like this look at me i’m doing it like this it can’t be easier but you screw it up anyway how many times should i say listen to what i say you carry on like this you’re never going to be independent if you think you’re going to just take over don’t make me laugh it’s not going to be easy stop treating it like a joke i shouldn’t be leaving no one’s going to be as good as me i’m not angry i’m disappointed actually just go away i don’t want to talk to you anymore just leave

mister president! mister president!

999 what is your emergency i just killed my boyfriend *** security where are my bodyguards here step right here sir but what's going on step up to the podium microphones like candles at the funeral altar and the flash flash of cameras lenses shoved in like snouts in a trough mister president mister president where were you in the night of his death with who what were you doing why what what I will not be taking questions my press office no sir we advise you take them now what but again mister president mister president are you a homosexual do you identify as a sodomite did you come out as a bottom call me anything leans in microphone whines just call me what caused your boyfriend's death he choked on an apple peel he never learned how to swallow but mister president mister president do you regret cheating why did you lie about your affair I am in an affair yes with all of humanity do you blame me if my presidency isn't the only man I see but your boyfriend he is imaginary and I am single and lonely will you ever make a comeback is this the end of your career this would never happen with a female president will she be back your predecessor I am my predecessor do you not see my jewels suit fancy rings I have devoured her sucked out her life licked the rest off my fingers done surgery on my personality and now in my time of need where is she oh my gawd the president's fainted call a state of emergency a state of the union monarchy mister president mister president

If the greatest defence is offence, might not the greatest offence be defence?

This essay will challenge the assumptions we make about culture and its sociological questions, relating to social interaction. This essay aims to break down key concepts and then relay them back to the essay’s key concerns with culture.

Firstly, what is culture?

This essay adopts a broad definition of culture, a term used to describe a set of unified values, beliefs and social practices that a social group holds.

Something interesting to explore is where culture comes from. Should we look at the individual or the group as the starting point for understanding the origin of culture?

If we start with the individual, culture becomes about personal perspective but also fulfilling the emotional needs of the individual. The individual cultivates a sense of their own personal identity, but desires group belonging which creates group identity. While the individual tries to create their own unique personal and social identity within the group, the group simultaneously creates an exaggerated difference from other groups to reinforce their sense of group uniqueness.

If culture in the individual’s perspective is about personal identity and belonging, it looks different from the collective’s perspective. The collective regulates norms and disciplines members who step out of them. Self-awareness comes from members’ awareness of each other’s interactions, where they constantly monitor their behaviour to fit into social norms.

Something to refute first and foremost is the idea of the autonomous agent - which means the atomised individual, romanticised and portrayed as heroic in their quest for personal meaning. This idea, while attractive as a cultural and ideological ideal, is flawed because it doesn’t consider how much the individual is actually a sum of its social relations. We should consider instead how the self is the ‘holistic self’, made up of the social relationships, filial ties, political allegiances and other complex social identities which help to construct the self’s identity within a social group.

But we can’t throw out the idea of the individual entirely either - it remains an important sociological question why the individual still holds so much gravity and appeal, especially in today’s world. Anthony Giddens discusses this and says that a person living in today’s society practices hypermodern reflexivity, the individual social consciousness needed to reflect on one’s life choices to create a narrative about their future and career. Less important then is the individual/social divide, but understanding how the individual is structured by the social whole, and their personal practices are only given social meaning within the social context in which they are practised.

Our common sense assumptions of social action are flawed. Usually we think of ourselves as having a subjective interior and objective exterior, where personal imagination and consciousness lends us idealistic omnipotence compared to the objective social world where we are pressured to conform and behave in accordance with social norms.

But this distinction breaks down when we begin to de-essentialise the interior self. As mentioned before, individual consciousness is always social consciousness because we use language to think, inherently something socially constructed. But we also always consider our position compared to other people, evaluating, comparing and judging ourselves to others.

All this discussion helps to frame my thoughts on something I think intersects the personal and the social - the masquerade. The masquerade posits culture as a defence, temporary transcendence but ultimately an ambiguous resistance and subversion of social norms.

The masquerade is the social practice of forced assimilation or conformity with dominant social norms. It uses the performative disguise of culture to speak and appear like the dominant Other. But the performative nature of culture also indicates the transformative potential of culture that points towards alterity and playfulness - if normality can be performed, then maybe nothing is strictly normal or fixed. Culture is the transcendence of these norms.

So the masquerade, performed successfully, helps to subvert the very social norms which made the masquerade necessary in the first place.

But the masquerade is ambiguous as a form of social resistance. It means accommodating the needs of the social dominant, and can lend itself to acquiescence and obedience.

But the masquerade points towards something in between dominant and subordinated, or the master/slave dichotomy. It indicates the possibility of escaping binaries, if something can occupy different positions of resistance and social being simultaneously.

We can understand the masquerade as the process of double codification - the person is first embedded as a social person through social norms, but then given social agency as they practise their construction of personal meanings through those norms. The process is inherently unstable though because the person’s social existence is always threatened by the Other’s control and domination.

So what is the point of culture? Culture is about escape - there’s something barren and dull about social norms which numb and pacify an individual’s search for meaning and alternative forms of socially relating with others. But if culture is to form meaningful tools of social resistance, it must try to transform social practices, perhaps through paradigmatic shifts where actions are interpreted with different types of social meaning.

And finally, the masquerade is like wearing a mask. Or perhaps the inverse - the mask wears the person, and there are multiple social masks, which indicates the impossibility of knowing one’s true authentic self because we are left inevitably deprived of the Other’s complete social validation.

#AAC #masquerade

[seansaboutacity]

#1 AAC - Desire

Elio’s peach

does master love the bud to his love it is sweet and succulent my body turned inside out like a glove my reddened core left exposed to his touch

call me where you want to touch me i feel your cries palpitate my skin - come on here can’t you see fruit pussy i got you some new seed  your lips tremble and mine shudder jammed tight until you groan and release

it is a beautiful disaster torn skin and broken ribs spilling out its contents everywhere master left me like a murder victim bleeding insides mixed with his semen trickling through the floorboards into the world below

all that’s left now is the distant cries of play his skin memorised in the grooves and cuts he made

let the sun dry the summer wood

*

sexx dreams

everytime i dream i die a little inside and think of beautiful things

***

if my body is a temple break a boy’s body over hard stone let me drink his blood then call it sacrifice my mind is my palace come here your hardness and holds me by my master key you’re so hard but i pinch open my eyes it’s even harder to stay awake in this dream

flashpoint - his naked skin between his shoulder blades staring backwards eyes filled with want

flashpoint - my skin tight like a drum lid wanting oh god wanting wait for me i’m coming

he comes do i come somebody comes like the drip drip drip of a leaking tap spilling out of a bath i didn’t know i had

and when i wake my face looks run over by tyre tracks hair dishevelled mouth dry breathing through mouth and nostrils everything filled i can’t look below there’s a nest of snakes writhing below

***

daylight is the constant reliving of those desires thought forgotten and lost but captured in a photoreel of dreams that runs on and on

*

Can you learn to desire? Where does love come from? What needs to happen for us to desire something? Why is desire associated with extreme feelings of simultaneous attachment and aggression?

These questions are the concern of this essay, which hopes to give a panoramic view of desire - an impossible subject to about fully, but worth trying given how semi-universal love is to human existence. Every human society concerns itself with questions of love, or at least how to socially manage it - through practices like courtship, marriage and kinship structures. In these social practices, desire translates into concern with intimacy and how we gleam deeper ideas of selfhood, collective belonging and social identity from those personal experiences.

Some people define their life goals by desire - to find love, or the one. And others make it their political identities, to turn their desire into social emancipatory movements - think of the gay liberation movement as an example.

But this essay isn’t concerned with the ‘how’ of desire - about how it formulates into pragmatic goals or tidy nominal identities. It’s trying to ask the big questions, like the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of desire. What do we desire? Why do we desire the things that we do?

To preface the following discussion, I want to narrow definitions of desire to sexuality. It’s arguable that erotic desire blurs and can transform into other forms of desire, like platonic or aesthetic desire. But narrowing discussion helps me to be more direct and concise talking about erotic desire - and what I say equally isn’t limited to just erotic desire.

What is desire?

I think we should start by saying there are two dominant ways of thinking about sexuality: as something ‘taken away’, or ‘out there’.

Sexuality as something ‘taken away’ means that the individual subject is deprived of their object of desire. The subject is imagined as an incomplete whole who desires the Other (who has the object of desire) - thus the phrase, the subject’s desire is the Other’s desire.

Whereas, sexuality is something as ‘out there’ means that desire chooses its subject - and moves through the subject. We put away ideas of individual agency if we imagine that not just the first-person subject has agency but groups and even objective materialities.

Let’s think about the similarities these approaches have. Desire is for something external, which introduces ideas of psychological instability, fragmentation and emotional conflict.  Desire is needed for social relations, which means desire is encoded by historical and sociological factors. Desire is also productive - it’s doing something to the subject (in the ‘out there’ approach) or it’s being done by the subject (in the ‘taken away’ approach).

So what are the disagreements?

To understand this, you have to understand how these arguments are placed in a historical canon. Lacan can be understood as a ‘taken away’ (technical term, psychological deprivation) thinker because he understands desire as constituted through the Mirror stage and Oedipal complex. But Deleuze arose as a powerful voice of dissent to Lacan, charging him for perpetuating the importance of power in how we understand desire. Instead, according to Deleuze, we should understand how desire is produced in ‘desiring-machines’ which select subjects as multiple objects of desire; from the subject’s perspective, they can plug into different desiring-machines which offer different affective energies.

To put it simply, Lacan offers a structural approach to desire whereas Deleuze lends more to a post-structural approach.

I borrow from both thinkers - I think both thinkers have interesting perspectives on desire which I have tried to summarise by thinking about their similarities. Imagine what each thinker says in abstract - Lacan saying that the subject is an ‘incomplete whole’, Deleuze saying that the subject is an ‘immanent field of desire’ - and you have something in between, perhaps most importantly a concern with how desire and our understanding of it changes in different contexts.

Which leads us to the next question, what does desire do?

It’s something that makes people irrational and take risks. But I think optimistically about desire, as something creative and productive of social relations.

I think desire starts with vulnerability. I think desire requires admission or self-confession that one desires, especially if desire is same-sex and has historically been stigmatised.

But equally I think desire is fluid and changes. Sometimes labelling fixes things which in reality exist in flux - where language can assume more security, and betray even more liminality.

I think desire also interests me because of its intensity. I don’t feel the same intensity about eating cereal or catching the bus in the morning. But I’m willing to think about my love interests all day and feel like it’s out of my control.

Is there something about our desires which reveals something about ourselves? Maybe the qualities they demonstrate, and the promise of happiness they make.

But desire can very quickly walk on the Mobius strip of negative emotions - turn into a confirmation of our insecurities and stop us from being true to ourselves if we constantly pursue external to us.

In this discussion, I’m trying to play with desire as the ‘excess’ - something about its ‘surplus’ nature which means it escapes definition, even as I try to analyse what it means to desire. I think that’s what remains endearing about our interest with desire, how it can unstabilise things but also reveal things about ourselves we hadn’t known before.

For me, it gives me license to explore those sensitivities and vulnerabilities - and makes me feel comforted that I join previous generations of people who have thought and asked these same questions. Maybe in itself this project has become an outlet for these pent up desires, a place for those ‘energies’ to go.

#AAC #desire

[seansaboutacity]

#1 collaboration - Ash

(A photo of Ash Layo)

You’re probably wondering, reading this, what’s going on.

As the first post of this kind, let me explain.

So as part of the About A City (AAC) project, I’m going to collaborate with my close friends and fellow creatives to explore the AAC’s themes. It’ll be a great way to shine a light on different perspectives, and explore poetry’s potential to illuminate things previously left unsaid or invisible.

In this first post, I have the great honour of collaborating with Ashley Layo Masing (or just Ash for short). I met Ash in my second year this year and even though we’ve known each other for a short while I feel like I’ve really got to know him through our shared background being both queer and Asian, and also our shared interests in the creative arts and social science.

The way this post is going to work (as with future posts) is that I present the two poems each written by one of us. We then lead onto comments about the poems, and then to more general discussion about the project’s themes and why poetry and the arts is so important in today’s society.

So without further ado, here goes our poems (Ash’s first):

A rainy day in London Town

It’s a rainy day in London Town, and my lover is in the choir room singing the harmony line to my  serenade. He holds a note for  as long as he held his breath when  a storm once forced his head under the pressure of the river Thames - I’m reminded of the spectres of my trauma walking past Russel square: a man who held the traditions of  manhood as high as his fear passes his duty when he abuses the way I hold my lover’s hand.

The echoes in the choir room switches from his sweet serenade to a quiet sob, and his throat becomes haunted by the legacy of some broken body. I meditate in his sadness while I recite an incantation from an unwritten journal. It’s a rainy day in London Town and it houses a refugee of tradition - I’m hiding  underneath her paper umbrella.

Comments

I first read this and thought it was really moving. What inspired you to write this piece?

As I started brainstorming ideas for this poem I started thinking about that vine with that annoying guy singing about rain in London and the TV show Glee, and boom, the first two lines were born. Then as I started writing it, I thought about my melancholic relationship to London and the hardships I faced being in what I thought was the city of my dreams. I was reminded of the horrendous act of homophobic violence that occured on a bus not too long ago as well as the instances of homophobia I personally faced and pretended to be okay with. And so this poem is a kind of ode to that part of my life, I acknowledge it but I don’t give it any power.

You use a lot of imagery about London, like Russell Square and the Thames. How important do you think that is in telling the story?

I think it’s interesting to explore human geography in poetry because it allows us to really imagine a sense of space in writing, allowing us to really breakdown (in our minds of course) the boundaries of time and space and be with the author’s experience.

I’m interested in the juxtaposition of love with violence, usually associated as its opposite. What effect did you want with that?

Sadly, that’s oftentimes the reality of love, it’s never smooth sailing. Romance isn’t what you see in movies, it’s hard work and it’s filled with adversity, especially so if you’re a sexual minority. It’s sad but it’s the truth about being in a non-heteronormative relationship, and we’re not going to be able to start any reparative work if we cannot acknowledge that.

The poem is narrated in first person and talks about (presumedly) his lover. But there’s also a sense that he’s lonely as he ‘meditates’ and ‘hides’. What do you mean by this?

I guess i’m trying to create an image of space and distance that comes with relationships. You’re not conjoined to another person when you love them, you still retain a part of yourself. It’s important to recognise the agency and personhood that still exists between people who are committed to one another

two boys, clinging

city in his eyes pavement in his stride he talks and burns with a little fire

something about feminist theory - I can't remember just his anger brimming like coal as we walk to the station at Oval

it sticks out in my head - I don't know why how the lazy London breeze rustled leaves on the street or it was seeing the Shard on the top deck of the bus jutting out like a sore thumb

it felt a bit like London - nothing really belongs people come and go like Heathrow

but as the sun goes down and he looks at me with false hope that I won't have to - I realise I don't want to go home

so frozen in time we remain to memory to past to dust two boys, clinging

Comments

So first of all, what was the main inspiration for this piece?

The piece was based off a real life personal experience I had walking with a friend in London. He’s an exchange student from Melbourne, and so I really wanted to take his perspective in the story of the poem because I wanted to see London through maybe an outsider’s eyes (being Australian/foreign). I also think the memory itself was poignant for me because I created a close friendship with him really quickly and feels a bit cut off now that he’s returned to Melbourne to study after his exchange.

You use a lot of interesting imagery, with the most significant being references to London - how key is London as a backdrop to the themes of your poem?

I could say that London is very significant as a backdrop to the themes of my poem - but that wouldn’t be completely honest, and that wouldn’t completely capture how I use geography or setting in a poem.

Personally, I don’t notice setting until something ‘dislocates’ me from it. Not to say a ‘real’ or ‘objective’ version of a setting could ever exist, but it’s interesting how our emotions help to construct the meaning of places for us through our memories, associations and who we shared them with.

So more specifically about London, I don’t think London exists, except in the imagination of people who live and study in London - in their hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future.

My experience in London has felt almost like absorption - I’ve grown up, been educated and studied in London all my life from childhood now into adulthood. But equally, my identity as a Londoner has sometimes been challenged - people can’t quite place my accent, and I definitely don’t have the same cultural tastes as people who grew up with me.

So that’s shaped how I use London in these poems in two ways: firstly, I’ve tried to understand London as a character in itself, helping to formulate desires that we didn’t know we had, like for place or belonging. But I also use London as something transitional, in process, that exists temporarily in people’s imagination but always bends towards the future, of something beyond.

And simply put, maybe it’s easier to think that all the weird, jumbled-up, tangled mess of experiences I’ve had happened in the same bubble of London. That’s one way of making sense where I’ve come from in life.

“he talks and burns with a little fire / something about feminist theory - I can't remember”

These are interesting lines that really stood out, how does this develop the subject of the poem?

I think I use philosophical or intellectual discussion to indicate tension. To me, philosophy and psychology are the same because they both ask questions about the meaning and existence of things. I prompt the reader to think about moments when they thought deeply about something - but took so much pleasure in it with someone else, that the idea took on a new life with an immanent, transcendental quality to it.

I think about moments where I’ve had deep conversations with people I really care about. Everything seems to melt away at that point, and it doesn’t matter what that other person says, you just want them to know that you’re there for them and you understand them - intrinsically, not for how clever they sound. It means that you don’t need to constantly appeal for someone’s approval or flattery, but to feel safe being who you are.

General discussion

Sean asking questions for Ash:

One theme I explore in my poems is solitude, which for me is part of the existential condition of human nature. What are your thoughts on solitude and aloneness? Is it something we need to be afraid of? Or learn to accept and overcome?

Like Agustus Waters in ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ I fear oblivion, and as much as I hated him and that book, he had a point that resonated with me. Western, capital ‘L’ Liberal, society emphasises this need to be this individual who will be this great person that will leave a lasting impact on the greater scheme of things, and that has really affected the way we relate to one another and the trajectory of our lives. Sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. I’ve spent so much time thinking about my individual success and the lasting impact I can make on our culture that I forget about the little things - caring about things beyond just us. Loneliness, for me, is a symptom of this perceived existential failure we might have when we think we’ve done nothing great in life and will eventually fade away into oblivion. But once we focus on the things we love and the people who love us, we can find alternative routes to overcoming loneliness.

Following on from the previous question, is the importance of friends. What conflict do you think arises from the need to be alone but the need to stay socially connected? How can that be managed?

A friend of mine once told me that everything in life is transient. Sometimes people come and go and we need to accept that. But if you care enough about a person, no matter how distant you’ve become, emotional and physically, reuniting with them will feel like no time has passed whatsoever. Sometimes it’s a matter of putting in the hard work to maintain the relationship. Other times, it’s just there.

My poems also talk a lot about desire as its core theme, related with themes of sexuality, erotic desire and love. What do you think of the importance of desire? How do you personally connect with the theme?

I think desire and passion can be sexy. Not just intimate desire, but desire in general. It shows that you care about something, and oftentimes that something is beyond your own needs. And to put someone else or something else before you, so much so that you would do anything to pursue its happiness is a trait that we should all be embracing, especially given the state of our politics.

I approach poems as a practice of remembering/forgetting - we choose to remember the memories we want to and express them openly. How do you personally use poetry? 

I use it as a form of ‘emotional essay writing’, as a way to express my ideas when prose is not enough. There’s something powerful and evocative about writing in metaphor, it can really help someone understand your point of view and perspective of the world. I guess you can say that poetry carries ethnographic value.

I’m worried in today’s society we don’t express ourselves fully and openly as we ought to, and it correlates with a wider depreciation of the arts and creative writing in general. What do you think about this?

I think that due to the need to generate capital and profit, we’re becoming estranged from the things that make us human. Today, art and culture is only valuable to the extent that it can be fetishished (in the Marxist sense of course). Creating and indulging in lowbrow culture could be a potential form of praxis. But that could also fall into the trap of class-based appropriation; I mean we’re already seeing rich ppl spend ridiculous amounts of money to appear working class because it looks cool. If you wanted to look cool you would redistribute your wealth, just saying. Anyways, art and culture should be appreciated for what it is and not what it can be valued. I guess revolution might be the only way to ensure that my dude.

Ash asking questions for Sean

Starting with a basic question, what impact are you hoping to achieve with your poetry?

I want my poetry to make a connection. It could be a connection with the personal meaning in the poem. It could be a social connection, to make people think, talk and act differently.

I think it’s exciting because it’s the first time I’ve really done something like this. I think I just want to throw a pebble into the water - and watch where the ripples go.

I use my poetry as a form of ‘emotional essay writing’ so to speak; as social scientists I believe we can stand to benefit from poetry as a sort of window into our culture, do you think poetry has a stake in changing the way we discuss the pressing issues we face today?

That’s a challenging question.

Because what even is social science? I mean, is Social Anthropology really a social science? I think it is - but it’s the most humanities of the social sciences. We’re really special as a subject because we draw from literary theory and cultural theory to ask deep questions about what it means to be human from alternative perspectives. 

As a result, I’m interested in the literary theory of Anthropology - of societies as texts, a la Clifford Geertz. I think the whole point of Anthropology is to understand that things can be different - and only then can you start using those differences to challenge the current status quo.

So then poetry can make a social difference. Poetry starts off for me as something very intimate and personal - I can’t lie when I write poetry, I feel like each poem is a bit of my soul, has a bit of my truth in it.

But each poem then walks along this Mobius strip of change, where meaning shifts into something different. I make sure to encourage this change myself, to make meanings outwards-bound and move towards the social exterior of the individual - I think Rilke said once that when you write constantly about sex in your poems, that’s when poetry goes to die. Because you lose what’s at stake in poetry - how often language captures a certain alterity from what’s material or tangible.

I’m going to keep pushing in my poetry for that idea of alterity, and difference, and immanence. All of those things characterise the social world for me - how the meanings we interpret from it are contingent on a sub-text which has been pre-scripted for us, but doesn’t need to completely determine how we play with them if we embrace a playful, crafty attitude.

I’m fond of the Mobius strip idea in general. If you like something, just do it. You’ll find a way to justify yourself in a narrative later. If you really want to change society all along, you’ll find a way for poetry to do that.

#ash

[seansaboutacity]

Introduction

‘Love the questions themselves’, Rainer Maria Rilke says.

With that thought in mind, I’ve set off on this journey, pushing to the limits how much I can put to words my experiences and feelings about them. It was not easy going through the things I have, and no easier writing about them - I wait to see what response I get from releasing these poems into the wild, knowing that’s up to you, the reader, to tell me.

But on this end, I can say it was a pleasure writing - and indeed, still is, as I continue to shape up draft versions of poems and completely construct new ones waiting to be written near the tail end of this project.

The idea hatched in my head near the end of summer term. Exams had just finished and I was tired of big ideas. My essays were big appeals towards them, talking about gender, neoliberalism and state violence - sometimes all in the same essay. I couldn’t go on and wanted to take a break, from a degree which I love so much it was hard to let go and not feel like I constantly wracked my head for answers to these big questions even outside of class.

I’ve found it hard to be myself during my university experience. That’s not meant to be a hit at LSE or university in general - I could say much worse, believe me. But moments when I’ve felt uncertain or doubtful about something have been the same moments when things really paid off afterwards. I was uncertain about my degree - so I decided to change to Anthropology. I was uncertain about being closeted - so I decided to come out to everyone as gay. I was uncertain about who I was at university - and have tried hard to be as open and civil with others as possible, including people I don’t normally mix with. (I shall leave it to you, reader, to judge me on how well I’ve done that.)

When I thought about writing a poetry project, I knew what it had to be about. It had to be about these past two years I’ve been at uni, the experiences and the friends I’ve made along the way.

If uni has been hard sometimes, it’s always been rewarding too. There were many ups and downs, but I felt like along the way I always had friends who had my back - and I hope they know I had their backs too. I slip into past tense because I know I won’t see many of my friends for a long time, as I’m going to study abroad in China next year. But my biggest fear hasn’t been the culture shock or trying to get by, but having to leave my friends and memories behind.

As the idea grew in my head, I knew what I was going to call it. About a city - what else do you call friends who have grown into a literal city for you? Like high-rises growing from the ground and sky scrapers pointing into the sky.

I went along with this idea and decided to write poems based on these five themes:

Desire

Masquerade

Ambiguity/ambivalence

Regret/loss

Futurity/becoming

Each theme was something I felt I had to personally deal with especially at university, and were complicated as both emotional problems and social dilemmas - perhaps they mean the same in practice, but thinking about them separately helps me to unpick the psychological and sociological intersections of my lived everyday experiences.

Each week I will release a poem, sometimes plural, which helps to illuminate each theme into something concrete.

I wasn’t a natural to poetry, and actually at secondary school I hated it, especially the over-analysis and quite frankly the bullshit you had to come up with explaining why the colour blue of curtains represented melancholy or something. But poetry has grown on me since then as a powerful way to express myself, speaking as someone who sometimes feels shy and spoken over, over-estimated in his academic ability but under-estimated everywhere else. I write poems for myself, to unspool feelings which have become entangled in hurt, loss or idealism. But I also write poems for others - to be a good poet means to be a good captain, to be able to navigate desires yet unexplored, unfurl emotions which stay unconscious and express things left unsaid. I have seized the opportunity to be extremely sensitive, reflective and queer with both hands - believe me!

‘Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday’, Wittgenstein says.

That’s a perfect way to think about it. Except the order is wrong - language goes on holiday, so that philosophical problems arise.

Deleuze said about philosophy that we should not find theory which defines and limits possibility, but to find a theory which explores and opens up alternative possibilities. The point of philosophy is not to define things, but to be defined by things in an immanent process of becoming change.

It was Alfred Whitehead who said of Western philosophy, ‘it is a series of footnotes to Plato’.

So it is with Deleuzian-zeal that I go on to write an essay about each theme exploring the meanings it has for me. But to save it for the foot-notes - philosophy can take the back-seat this time, while my poems perhaps express what feels more particular and personal for me.

Every journey should start off clean. So I want to start off by getting some things off my chest:

I worry about doing enough for others. Sometimes I put myself first, but I feel like my actions hurt others and nothing feels like enough.

I’m worried others people speak and act for me too much. I resent when this happens but, instead of confronting them about it, I withdraw and move away.

I worry about not being myself. Things have changed since leaving secondary school when I wanted to blend in and not rock the boat. Now I’m terrified about losing myself in the crowd - how university has become a course in compromise about deciding what I want to give up to fit into the mould of adult life.

I worry about having regrets. I worry that I’m so scared of trying things out, I don’t even turn up. I’m worried that my fear of failure has turned into a fear of success - that I don’t think I’m good enough, even when I do well.

I’m comforted however that I won’t have to do this project alone. I’ve asked my close friends to collaborate with me on this project - thank you to all of them, as I’ve thanked them individually, for agreeing to do this with me. I feel very supported and uplifted by the help, and it speaks to the time I’ve got to know you all, whether it be months or years.

So now, I want to share my first poem of many to come.

The Impossibility of Poetry

how do i make words do something that refuse to stay on paper grow bored and turn fugitive

words start small now collect on the page really it’s simple if poetry was just addition like one plus one equals two

but sometimes it doesn’t equal two how do you know if you haven’t experienced every equation poetry is the meeting of words like strangers in the dark you’re a stranger to yourself after but maybe you always were

or it’s that flirt you always wanted to say to the crush you liked or it’s that one-liner you didn’t come up with but you’re burning to say now it’s treading the continual line between forgetting and remembering what things are better off (not) being left unsaid

so i want poetry that stirs hearts that wants more like the lyrical equivalent of beer at the bottom of the bottle

so stay with me i promise to make it worth it watch me set up the mic and sit on my drumbox i will busk and cry and sing for someone to stop

just relax and enjoy reading this poetry with me