UN Greetings / Whale Greetings

“UN Greetings / Whale Greetings” section of Voyager Golden Record begins with Quranic verse of Ar-Rahman, verse 33, ends with whales’ “greeting."

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Wooden Tables With Glass Embedded In Them To Look Like Rivers

[therumpus]

What is most remarkable about Poetry of Witness may not even be the poems themselves, powerful as they are, but the historical contexts of each of the poets. New Criticism had many values, but the paragraphs describing what happened to each of the poets here demands that history cannot be separated from what and why poems were made. Not merely aesthetic objects, the poems could get you killed.

Poetry of Witness The Tradition in English, 1500-2001 by Carolyn Forche and Duncan Wu, reviewed by Sean Singer (via therumpus)

[whalegreetings-blog]

Helen in Egypt, Eidolon, Book III: 4 Helen herself seems almost ready for this sacrifice--at least, for the immolation of herself before this greatest love of Achilles, his dedication to "his own ship" and the figurehead, "an idol or eidolon . . . a mermaid, Thetis upon the prow." Did her eyes slant in the old way? was she Greek or Egyptian? had some Phoenician sailor wrought her? was she oak-wood or cedar? had she been cut from an awkward block of ship-wood at the ship-builders, and afterwards riveted there, or had the prow itself been shaped to her mermaid body, curved to her mermaid hair? was there a dash of paint in the beginning, in the garment-fold, did the blue afterwards wear away? did they re-touch her arms, her shoulders? did anyone touch her ever? Had she other zealot and lover, or did he alone worship her? did she wear a girdle of sea-weed or a painted crown? how often did her high breasts meet the spray, how often dive down?

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15449

[whalegreetings-blog]

As in many of her earlier works, Doolittle uses myth throughout Helen in Egypt to offer a transhistorical view of these gender politics, comparing Helen’s ancient cultural context, her own contemporary one, and the time that has elapsed between the two.

http://www.cerisepress.com/02/05/hds-helen-in-egypt-myth-symbol-and-subjectivity

[whalegreetings-blog]

“UN Greetings / Whale Greetings” section of Voyager Golden Record begins with Quranic verse of Ar-Rahman, verse 33, ends with whales’ “greeting."