CLARA T LPEZ MENNDEZ...kneading lines and voids...

19-22
EMMA ELEONORASDOTTER.....................................
............What I Most Regretted was My Silences...24-25
HANNA GUSTAVSSON..........cover: THE POET......front+back
JESS ARNDT.......THE POET...........................26-27
JESSIKA EKLUND.....................earth............12-15
JOHANNA GUSTAVSSON.........L O V E..................28-31
LENA SRAPHIN AND ANDREA MEININ BCK.....................
........................The Far Seeing Oodd-Bird....38-39
MALENE DAM........La Laguna.........................16-17
PIA SANDSTRM AND FIA-STINA SANDLUND.....................
Associated Poetry....................................2-11
TIA-SIMONE GARDNER.........read, rite, repeat......32-37
ULRIKA GOMM........................I AM POEM........18+23

THE POET, September 2014

Associated Poetry
by Pia Sandstrm and Fia-Stina Sandlund

Hi Fia, I read this poem of Audre Lorde called

Power and I thought of your Facebook status
this summer.
Pia

10

Power, from The collected poems of Audre Lorde (W.W.Norton New York, 1997).
11

Earth
by Jessika Eklund

12

Athena Farrokhzad by Mafalda Ruiz, 2014

13

14

There is earth beneath you. Dig. Build. Transform.

That is how it has always been done.
Excel beyond and dive into the Abyss.
Be afraid. Be brave.
Noone knows the truth about the dirt you build from.
Ignore them. There is no such thing as geniuses.
There is only neverending sweat.
So you do not have to believe

in something greater than the extacy of relief.

Exploit your demons. Gather the dark corners and let it fill up the sky to give sight
to all womencreatures.
Meet the hardest part of being you.
Take someone with you in all things you do. We need to hear you.
There will never be any sun otherwise.
Just hold my hand.
I need you. Lets play.

15

La Laguna
by Malene Dam

16

You said, I have never danced to such a bad song in such a beautiful place.

Im not able to sleep, to sink into a deep sleep.

My body and mind are lulled into a relaxed state of togetherness.
Drinking my morning coffee quietly by the window
with the ins and outs of the running breakfast.
We share an apple across the table.
How to swim in the cold laguna before coffee?
I need to wake up slowly.
Growing into routines I dont wanna leave.

Leaving slowly means I let you go little by little,

the landscape, the seabirds and every one of you.
Nuzzled in the backseat of the car seeing the light give way to darkerness
the further south we get.
Absorbing and taking you all in
and with us.
We sing and make up stories.
Share ourselves.

gratitude to FRANK, RST AIR, Vika Begalska, Katarina

Bonnevier, Liv Bugge, Kajsa Dahlberg, Mathias Danbolt,
Berivan Erdogan, Ester Fleckner, Jason Rosenberg, Sille
Storihle, Elin yen Vister and Elijah Yakovenko
for creating an island.

17

I AM POEM
by Ulrika Gomm

I am capitalism
I am racism
I am hatred
I am war
I am dehumanization
I am hunger
I am dominance
I am religion
I am exclusion
I am exploitation
I am intolerance
I am rape
I am restriction
I am death
I am agenda
I am money
I am blindness
I am bullet
I am hierarchy
I am efficiency
I am violence
I am reward
I am narcissism
I am dictatorship
I am field of application
I am newstribune
I am fire
I am observer
I am border
I am accomodation
I am experiment
I am schoolbook
I am contestant
I am categorization
I am abuse
I am information
I am security
I am system
I am obedience
I am tradition
I am insult
I am humiliation
I am antifeminism
I am paranoia
I am need
I am brutality

18

Clara t Lpez Menndez

kneading lines and voids

19

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I am structure
I am gender
I am superintendence
I am Christmas Eve
I am New years eve
I am persuasion
I am oppression
I am bankpaper
I am disappointment
I am fear
I am ideal
I am insurance company
I am dogmatism
I am increase
I am anger
I am illiteracy
I am career
I am advertising
I am monument
I am institution
I am guilt
I am retail store
I am demand
I am ritual
I am vanity
I am nostalgia
I am pity
I am marriage
I am gain
I am leader
I am denial
I am inflexibility
I am sexism
I am pride
I am lesson
I am misuse
I am commodity
I am competition
I am transaction
I am homophobia
I am greed
I am urgency
I am ideology
I am prosperity
I am advantage
I am claim
I am hostility
I am censorship
I am patriotism
I am machine
I am desire
I am bigotry
I am double standards
I am politics

23

What I Most Regretted was My Silences

by Emma Eleonorasdotter

This text is based on my reflections on the poetry of Revolution

Poetry and my reading of Audre Lorde, who is quoted in italics.
So I want to say something about class. I find the possibilities to
express the pressure that is keeping the structure of class up very
limited. Definitions are vague but the effects are concrete. Class
is what keeps you busy and from what starting point you are doing
what you do. It is intertwined with questions of race and gender but
has its own laws connected to the global economy, heritage and
politics. Its material and mental. People usually speak about class
after they have distanced themselves from their former class related
issues. And in the mean time class related privileges are admired
and met by insecure smiles and welcomes.

In our world, divide and conquer must be define and empower.

Words. The vast effect of words on humans. The other night I saw
five women performing Revolution Poetry and I cried. They were all
racified children of immigrants and their stories were harsh and
powerful. They shot right through weaves of pathriarchy, orders of
class and elevated whiteness and spoke of anger, frustration and
dreams. Modern working class literature is now racialised, situated
in the suburbs and it is spoken as much as it is written.
Definitions, as tools to make concrete the slipperiness of the
frustration that comes with structural oppression, pull painful,
personalized anguish right out to communal recognition. And at the
same time, definitions can serve to point out who is gaining from a
normalized state of affairs, and make communal recognition a
personal matter. This is a tricky part, how avoidance of
uncomfortable personal accusations leads to undefined relations of
power.

... It was going to be my own secret knowledge, if it was going to

be my own secret pain.
Class today differs from race, gender, sexuality and age in that it
is not let in to the public sphere if not redressed and rephrased as
if it was not there, at least not in that moment. That way questions
of race, gender, sexuality and also age appear separable from the
question of class. Which they structurally are not. Individually
they are. If we cannot speak about class we will always wonder why
so much talent pops up only to mysteriously disappear. This often
has to do with race, gender, sexuality or age, but nearly always it
has to do with class.

24

How is empowerment through definition of difference achieved? Class,

race, gender, sexuality and age. If it was that easy. I find those
concepts much too vague. On the question of class: The lack of
money, lack of assets, lack of language of habitus, alliances,
knowledge, networks and safety nets have got no romantic
consequences when it is based on structural formations of power,
rather than temporality and exception. Neither has cleaning jobs,
tiredness, crude expressions, restricted imagination of what is
possible.
Discussions about structures of power from only one angle are
pointless, if not how these structures operate is discussed
simultaneously. The uneasy subject of power. Understand this:
neither race, class, gender, sexuality or age are god-given points
of measure. Because of various reasons they are concepts culturally
charged with value. Their importance lies in the culturally created
relations of power. We are, within discourse, reproducing these
structures of power. All the time. That is how we get listened to.

For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs
for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that
final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke
us.
Because its just so much more complicated to point out how
structural oppression affects also personal and intimate
relationships. As they are shaped within what was already in the
realm where they were born they are bound to reproduce whatever was
there. All of it, to some extent. Negotiated, straightforward or
hidden. Forgotten, naturalized, invisible. And fundamentally
personal. How do you tell someone? Ask someone to sit. Push their
reluctant bellies. Desperately raised voices.
But we cannot avoid it. We need to bring this forward: There is a
shame in class that is constantly nurtured from all directions.
Class, tightly intertwined with questions of race, gender, sexuality
and age is constructing material as well as mental iron curtains
that hinder our creativity. It pulls us apart. It blocks us from
knowing each other.
Do you dare?

25

THE POET
by Jess Arndt

The poet is speaking to me across the table. The poet is

saying something baroque. The poet wears Uggs, she thinks
theyre funny. Ha ha, how grody, the feet of a poem! the
poet says. The poet has better sex than I do. The poet
assures me and without a doubt, I am assured. The poet uses
mental telepathy in frequencies prefigured by the suns sun.
The poet doesnt go to book fairs. The poet adjusts her
glasses by extending her middle finger leisurely to the
bridge of her nose. The poet stares at me as she does this.
The poet clips coupons for items she will never purchase.
The poet is anti-capitalist. The poet thinks palm trees are
obscene. The poet does not eat anything with a heartbeat but
tell me, whose heart really beats? the poet says. The poet
swims thrice daily. The poet says its her job. The poet has
thought about all of this before. The poet once wrote a book
about it but it went out of print. Actually, the poet fucked
her publisher and then after some liters of wine spilled the
news on something like twitter except it was before twitter,
a pre-twitter event in other words she just leaned over and

26

told the someone (ok other lover) sitting next to her AND
THEN because of a BEREFT IMAGINATION or a SCARCITY MODALITY
the poets publisher had no choice but to torch the script.
The poet has one gold tooth, molar 31. The poet spends most
of her time nursing beers in lonely bars. The poet is a wet
nurse. The poet is a freak. The poet never gets nervous. The
poet is not ashamed. The poet orders for both of us. When I
tell the poet what I want she disagrees, you dont want it,
she says. The poet talks loudly and often follows the waiter
into the kitchen to tell him whats what. The poet thinks
Bolano was a shit poet. The poet likes his novels of course.
The poet offers me a Klonopin and then makes me spell it out
loud to the geriatric couple at the next table over. The
poet thinks Im a crappy speller but likes my: je ne sais
quoi. No really, says the poet looking at me skeptically: je

ne sais quoi. The poet admires the word jaguar. The poet
says it: jag ooo war. Take some time to think about it, the
poet says. I mean it, she says, ogling her watch. You should
really take some time.

27

L O V E
by Johanna Gustavsson

Speak earth and bless me with what is richest

Your kiss
your eyes and
make sky flow honey out of my hips
I don't understand, just what it is that your love can do that no
one elses can
I touch on you more and more
call your name two, three times in a row
I'm begging you not to go
I'm feeling
and my pride
when you leave
every time
I don't understand
just how your love can do what no one elses can
your touch
now crazy
now page me
now save me
your kiss
right now
crazy
high wind in her
my body
writes into your flesh
the poem
you make of me
Love said: You shall be heard

The first time I heard about Simone's spiritual awakening it

sounded very odd to me. She was a materialist, marxist, practical,
political, I mean, that epiphany must have been very physical. And
needed. She wanted to give herself to someone, place herself in
someone elses hands. That is what happens when everything is
material and set and planned and constructed and still keeps
fucking up. That's when you need the epiphany.

28

Simone told me that she had read a poem named LOVE, and while
reading, a spirit spoke to her.
I had a spiritual awakening, she said.
I sat in silence and stared at her when she told me. It was
difficult for me to understand what she said, the content of it.
I had met Simone (Weil) at a union meeting a couple of years
earlier. It was during the time she worked at the Renault factory.
She was hard core, that's why I was drawn to her. We where
Marxists. She was factual and direct, I could relate to that and I
felt I understood her. I don't know, I guess I was very judgmental
and ignorant about spirituality and emotions and senses, but I had
just never associated her, myself or the Marxist tradition, with
spirituality and religion. So when she told me, flat out, the way
she always spoke, that she'd had an epiphany, I didn't know how to
respond. I wasn't able to understand it. I was quiet while she
looked at me, and we sat there in silence.
It took me a little while to turn back to her.
Ok, ok, I said. Like Marx said: Religion is the opium of the
masses. I can understand how you would need a little bit of that
in these times.
Your making a joke about it, that's ok, she said, but you know
what it means, right?
Yes, yes, I'm sorry, I replied, I think so, opium - not a drug
like Lenin interpreted it, but more like... utopia.
Exactly.
I didn't mean to be disrespectful, I said.
It's cool. You're still here, that matters the most.
The poem was written by Audre Lorde (no not really, but let's
pretend, it fits this story well), and it was done in an attempt
to write herself into love, into a state of love, to surround
herself with love.
Time passed between Simone telling me about the awakening and us
coming together again. Simone got weaker and I missed her and I
had been thinking hard on her confession and my reaction. I
contacted her and asked her to join Julia, Audre and me for a
night out.
Our common friend, the puertorican poet, Julia (de Burgos) had
decided to pay an homage to Simone and Audre, and invited us to
hear her read the poem at an open mic night at the tavern close to
her home in Harlem. Weil lived on the same street. Me and Audre
took the bus there together.

29

Julia read.
The room was busy, as usual. Julia knew everybody in the place.
After hello's, a drink, a cigarette, she sat down. Our four bodies
sat around a plastic table and cried. Our teardrops made subtle
drum sounds when they hit the red, scratched surface.
Simone spoke first: Audre, I swear, I read the poem and it spoke
to me! Love said: You shall be heard and the spirit appeared.
We all turned to her. Julia, who sat on Simones right side, put
her hand on her knee. I uncrossed my arms and lay my hands to rest
openly on the table. Audre, on the left, already had her arm
around Simone's shoulders. The door and windows where opened and
the night was a little bit cold, it was only mid September but the
hour was late.
What did you do to that poem? Simone asked.
What do you mean? Audre answered.
It spoke to me, a spirit spoke to me, I mean it literally, it has
never happened to me before. It spoke to me like no human ever
has, have, will. Ever. I don't even know how to explain it to you,
I have no words left, your poem and the spirit took them all, and
embodied them. She stared at us with a serious face.
I shall speak no more! She said dramatically and covered her eyes
with her right hand.
Oh no, but please do! I said to top her drama and took her right
hand and placed it between mine. I looked into her eyes to mark my
presence.
She smiled and said: It's a figure of speech, girl, common, you
know what I mean. Or are we completely missing each other here?
She asks and opens her body to face us all.
NO! says all firmly and mean it: No, we're with you, we hear you.
Julia's hand on Simone's knee, Audre's arm around Simone's
shoulder, my hands surrounding Simone's right hand.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

A while later we have giggles, juice and peanuts at the plastic
table.
How did you write that poem? Julia asks Audre.
I don't know, just like every other time I pile words on top of

30

each other. Very practical but quite organic too. I guess.

She pauses, and then turns to Simone:
I am truly touched by you Simone, your awakening, your epiphany, I
am, but there is no formula or specificity about how this poem was
made or written. It was all you. The poem is quite cheesy, you
know.... but, well, to answer your question Julia: I sat down,
like I do, by my desk, that is too small, but anyway, by my
computer and wrote.
About love? I ask, and continue: That day you decided to sit down
and write about love?
Yes, Audre replies. LOVE. I sat down to work on a poem entitled
LOVE. I had the title, I knew I wanted to write a poem called L O
V E. I wanted to be surrounded by LOVE. I wanted my work that day
to be about love. I didn't love myself that day, to begin with,
but I felt the need to surround myself with it. Love. Yes, it was
as if I needed it like nothing else.
Sounds kinda special to me, Julia says after a moments silence.
You've said love like seven times in one sentence, I say and
Simone nods her head: Mhmm.
Huh, I guess so, Audre says.
We all look at each other and we laugh because it's like Simone's
epiphany somehow, all of a sudden, was accompanied by Audre's, in
her own way, and none of us had anticipated that so we laugh. Of
love. LOVE.
Tell me, I say after a moment of laugh, and clearing my throat and
having a sip of my drink, how do you write a poem? Literally. I am
interested to know.
Well, like I said, it's not very complicated, it's simple, but not
easy, there's a big difference. I sit down by my computer and I
start to write. I always have something on the sheet, some words,
something, I never start off with white, that is never my starting
point. There are no clean slates or white cubes. My work is always
a continuation. It is part of. This time it read L O V E.

31

It is not only unlawful for slaves

to be taught to
, but in
some of the States
there are heavy
penalities attached, such as
fines and imprisonment, which
will be vigorously
enforced upon
any one who is
humane enough
to violate the socalled law.

read

32

I had felt, seen, and heard

enough, to
the
characters, and question the
motives, of those around
me.
As a young boy he was
sent to Baltimore, to be a
house servant, where he
learned to

and

, with the assistance of his masters wife.

That slavery, in all its

phrases, is demoralizing to every one concerned, none who may

read the following

narrative, can for a

moment doubt.

Without stopping to write a

long apology for
offering this little
volume to the
public, I shall
commence at
once to pursue
my simple story.
She told them it
had not been revealed to her; perhaps if she could
, she might
see differently.

She could neither

read nor

;
and when the bill
of sale was made
out, she signed it
with a cross.

During this time, my

copy-book was the board
fence, brick wall, and pavement; my pen and ink was
a lump of chalk. With
these, I learned mainly
how to

write.

I was invited to
attend, because I
.
could

She can read and

write, and in all
probability will try
to get to the Free
States.

33

34

35

I asked him if he
didnt know it was contrary to law; and that
slaves were whipped
and imprisoned for
teaching each other to

read.

slave to

The tale of my own sufferings is not one of great

interest to those who
of
delight to
hair-breadth adventures, of
tragica occurences, and
scenes of blood:--my life,
even in slavery, has been in
many respects comparatively comfortable.

read

I resolved, therefore to
letters from the
north from time to
time.

36

Just at this point of my

progress, Mr. Auld found
out what was going on, and
at once forbade Mrs. Auld
to instruct me further,
telling her among other
things, that it was unlawful
as well as unsafe to teach a
.

This has not left me

much leisure to
make up for the loss
of early opportunities to improve
myslef; and it has
compelled me to
these pages at
irregular intervals,
whenever I could
snatch an hour from
household duties.

me to
and
spell; and for this
privilege, which
so rarely falls to
the lot of a slave,
I bless her
memory.

It gave me the best

assurance that I might
rely with the utmost
confidence on the
results which, he said,
would flow from teaching me to

The more I
, the
more I was led to abhor
and detest my enslavers.

They knew that I

could read; and
I was often asked
if I had seen anything in the newspapers about
white folks over
in the big north,
who were trying
to get their freedom for them.

*** Images by Tia-Simone Gardner, text is excerpted from the written and spoken words of formerly enslaved peoples including
Linda Brent, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and William and Ellen Craft.

While I was with

her, she taught

37

The Far Seeing Oodd-Bird

by Lena Sraphin & Andrea Meinin Bck

38

Lena
Id like to write like this, like a real poet. The white swan dreams
of liberty and falls in love. Her wing strokes beat over a mirror blank
surface. She is looking for currents. They shall take her to wild and
deserted lands. But all days are alike, wake up call-breakfast-medsZelle-lunch-outing-Zelle-dinner-meds-Zelle-lights out-wake up call-breakfast-meds-Zelle-lunch-. I get up and then I undress. One can summon up a
lifetime with a wake up and an undressing.
As a child I thought that speaking aloud and events had a magic
connection. If I would say; its warm tomorrow and were having packed
lunch to an outing in the big woods. Then it will happen. Ill give it a
try. Its warm tomorrow and were having packed lunch to an outing in
the big woods. Tomorrow I will fall in love. You can see how pointless
it is to live in the moment. I cant morph and be in a place where
everything is static like in Bltengae.
Its terribly beautiful today,
Andrea

***
This letter from 2005 is an excerpt from the epistolary novel The Far Seeing
Oodd-Bird by Andrea Meinin Bck & Lena Sraphin.

39

hi!
this is an invitation to participate in
DISRUPTIVE LAUGHTER.
disruptive laughter is a publication of 5 issues. each issue will be available both online, as a pdf
for downloading, and in a small edition printed version. there will be some sort of release event in
the end when all the issues are done. so each issue will be more like chapters in the whole, and the
release is an event of gathering those five chapters.
to loose a little bit of the hierarchical curatorial role my idea is to invite three women to participate in disruptive laughter, and those three women will invite two women each to the project.
all together we will be ten voices. this is also a way to hear and listen to voices that you have
not met before. for every issue it will be the same ten women dealing with those different voices
given for each issue. so over time and for each new issue we listen and speak and in the end there
will be a multitude of voices heard.
disruptive laughter:
#1 THE VISIONARY
#2 THE MOTHER
#3 THE DYKE
#4 THE POET
#5 THE WARRIOR
my idea is that the project will be going on for about a year, with start sometime during late summer 2013. every second or third month there will be a new issue published. the idea to give you the
titles for every issue from the beginning, is so each and everyone of the participants can dispose
their individual ideas and contributions to fit their own creative process. and for every issue all
these 10 voices will meet, a multitude of identities, thoughts, lived experiences, dreams, standpoints, complexities and voices.
each participant will have about 5 pages for each issue (more or less if needed). the format will be
A4, standing, b/w. the material can be images; photos, stills, drawings and/or text; essays, concrete poetry, articles, speeches and so on.. the layout will be very simple. all the body text will
have the same font, if there is not a specific layout idea for a specific text.
it is important, if you decide to be part of this project, that you will be part of it through all
the five issues. this project is formulated with inspiration from Audre Lordes life and work.
looking forward to hear from you! please dont hesitate to contact me if there is any questions or
thoughts!
all the best
/Ulrika Gomm
April 3 2013

DISRUPTIVE LAUGHTER
is supported by Lngmanska kulturfonden.
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PT MONO
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