Words on Walls

I write this final entry on Israel from back on Duke’s campus.  Our trip ended with a wonderful morning at Caesarea and an afternoon at the coastal town of Akko.  The next morning, we pulled away from the Kibbutz Ginosar when it was still dark to make it to our flight out of Tel Aviv on time.  Twelve hours later we were on the ground in Newark, New Jersey.  Modern travel can make it difficult to find the occasion to reflect on experiences abroad.  Suddenly I find myself tossed back into the hectic rhythm of a semester at Duke and the landscape of Israel seems impossibly far away in space and time.

During our last day, one of my classmates, Jamie, mentioned that he felt that the parts of the Israel trip that were important to him would shift over time, with different facets of the experience taking on a special significance at different moments and places in his life.  I feel similarly.  Already, I feel the significance of certain days shifting and growing.  As we traveled to over thirty archaeological sites during our time in Israel, even the most spectacular of artifacts took on an ordinariness toward the end of the trip.  Now, in North Carolina, I’m beginning to miss the archaeological richness of the Israel.  It seems unbelievable that such a small corner of the world could hold such a wealth of archaeological treasures.  Now, in my mind, the sites of Bet She’an and Sepphoris begin to stand out.  Bet She’an is home to perhaps one of the largest tels in the region.  Our visit to Bet She’an came toward the end of the trip, and as we climbed to the top, I found myself beginning to think more like an archaeologist, wondering what stories each of the layers told just beneath our feet.  It soon became clear that the stories were manifold.  Saul and David were said to have lived at Bet She’an and the city also thrived during eras of Roman and Byzantine settlement, with the remains of bath houses, amphitheaters, and roads commemorating the settlements during those periods.  The notion that the structures in a single small region can bear testament to centuries of settlement strikes me as near-miraculous.  I wanted nothing more than to able to envision the city as it was at each era; it is difficult enough to imagine the city at one time in its history but to be able to sift through the various layers of structures and symbols is even more difficult.  In retrospect, I would have loved to have spent much more time at Bet She’an in order to sift through the time periods and more fully appreciate each era in the city’s history.

The sites of Masada and Gamla seem particularly significant to me retrospectively.  Dr. Carol Meyers spoke often of the tendency in archaeology to focus on the unusual aspects of life suggested at a particular excavation, like the structure of government or lifestyle of royalty.  While archaeologists certainly should explore such concerns while conducting excavations, such questions should not be explored at the expense of gaining insight into the lives of the common people.  The sites of Masada and Gamla both spoke to the experiences of the common people, albeit under extraordinary circumstances.    At one point during the trip, one of our instructors asked the class whether the sites not associated with a specific narrative had less significance.  I believe the student responded that a lack of narrative did not seem to affect his or her experience of the site.  For me, however, imagining the experiences of entire communities in a particular setting holds much more power than simply learning about the features and functions of certain buildings.  The Gamla and Masada sites both emphasized that  large group of people lived, if briefly, at that location and that tumultuous events at that location molded their individual narratives there.  These sites facilitated my awareness that fully alive, intelligent, and creative human beings inhabited the places that we now excavate and study.  Such an understanding can certainly contribute to a fuller appreciation of the sites both as testaments to the advancement of human civilization and as places with strong human narratives.

Even though we visited the Church of the Holy Selpulcher on our very first day in Jerusalem, I think that it’s important that it enter into my concluding thoughts on the trip.  On our visit to the Church of the Holy Selpulcher, one of our instructors mentioned that the Church’s space is shared by six different Christian groups and that the interior of the church would reflect this division.  Upon entering the Church, one can easily see that the interpretation of the space is disjointed; there is not a strong sense of cohesion between the various rooms and alcoves of the church and even the way in which visitors respond to the assorted spaces and relics varies drastically.  I watched some visitors frantically snap pictures, looking for the perfect angle and lighting.  Other visitors knelt to kiss various relics, maintaining an air of devotion and solemnity throughout their time in the church.  This contrast confirmed and encouraged a slowly developing sense of just how starkly different in significance and meaning some of these sites can be for visitors.  As I mentioned in some of my earlier journal entries, I have often thought that I would visit Israel in a context of a pilgrimage.  Visiting these sacred sites in a scholarly context demanded a very different mental and emotional  approach to the trip.  While I certainly still felt a sense of reverence for the Holy Land, I found myself considering the sites and the narratives they represented from a much more analytical and objective perspective.  Particularly in Israel, it seems to me that archaeology takes on a significance to visitors outside of the scholarly community.  For some, biblical archaeology is simply interesting, but it seems important to me not to underestimate the sense of reverence that visitors may feel in response to these places.  For me, the potential for personal significance that these sites wield is all the more reason to research, excavate, and analyze with a strong sense of scholarship and integrity.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my thesis advisors, Dr. Sumathi Ramaswamy, brought to my attention the work of Zarina Hashmi.  Hashmi is a printmaker who works with maps and speaks to the concept of home.  I love the way that she takes maps out of their traditional contexts as images in books and on the internet, created to help users navigate their surroundings, and presents them in such a way that they stand beautifully on their own.  My particular favorite of the three that I share below is the map with the Arabic script behind it (Travels with Rani, 2008). As I begin to think about how to put together an exhibit of my work this year, I want to return to this piece and play with the possibility of juxtaposing text and image.  Depending on what text I’m working with, I may incorporate maps as images.  In particular, the poem “After Abyei” comes to mind as one that could be especially enhanced by the incorporation of maps.

These images are from the Luhring Augustine Gallery webpage. (http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/zarina-hashmi)

This week, I was struck once again by the chaos of writing first drafts.  For me, first drafts of poems have always been full of scribbles and arrows and substituted words.  I’ve learned to try my best not to stress about the quality of writing coming out when I first set words down on paper;  instead, I concentrate on identifying the themes and questions that are rising from the writing.  Often, all that remains from the first draft when I finish a poem is a few lines, but nevertheless, I need to put in the time to sit down and find those lines..  One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, explores the importance of less-than-perfect first drafts in her book Bird By Bird:

“For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all down on paper because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go — but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”

In light of her advice, I find myself excited rather than anxious when a first draft like the one below comes into being:

Coincidentally, the poem that came out of the scraps of paper pictured above came from my reflections on writing the other poems in my distinction project.  Here it is (as of now!):

At First

At first, words came

Slowly: crept out to dance on the crests

Of my fingertips, on the lines of my lips

Then fled to shadowed corners when I reached out

To catch them, to hold them

I fled too.

To desolate spaces where I could

Whisper somethings without substance

Where silence came easily

And I let it settle in because I was certain

There was nothing of worth to say

Then, just as dust began to film every hope, every thought

The words emerged or maybe

Returned

From his glance across the road

From her hummed harmonies

From our midnight conversations

Words for him: the one working two jobs

With toddler twins waiting

At home on a sun-flooded porch

And for her, who crafts notes so piercing

Her melodies bring down strongholds

And him who makes walls his stepping stones

To launch into worlds where nothing

Can hold him to the ground

Not gravity

Not weakness

Not fear of falling

So, if you rest here awhile

I will try to

Spread out words like laundry

So they will have space to dry

Space to breathe

Into the desolate spaces

You will see:

They are made to catch the light

To catch your breath

To bring down strongholds with a song

28 November 2011

This past week, I received some very helpful feedback from the members of my At Home/On the Wall independent study.  We talked about the poems and short stories that I have written thus far, mostly exploring which pieces they liked or disliked and why they felt that way.  I was surprised in some cases; a few of the pieces I felt the most sheepish about  were those they appreciated the most and vice versa.  There was a lot of discussion of when voice is “convincing” or “authentic” and when it is not.  My classmates and advisors generally recognized and confirmed that I was having difficulty speaking through other voices—for example, from the perspective of a resident of Belfast or Israel.  Instead, my independent study members agreed that the pieces that were most eloquent or interesting were those in which I spoke from my own perspective.  I’m not quite sure what to do with this problem, or whether it really is a problem.   On one hand, it seems entirely natural to speak with the most ease in your own voice.  Also, I often want to speak the most in my own voice.  There is a lot to process at Duke and many aspects of life here that I find quite relevant to my thesis topic of walls and borders.  On the other hand, I have so much respect for writers who can slip seamlessly from one voice into another and I would love to develop this ability.  I know that it will take time as well as a lot of effort (both in writing and rewriting as well as simply becoming a more acute observer of everyday conversations and speech patterns/dialect).  Still, I think that having a versatile voice in my writing is certainly something to strive for in the long run.  However, as I start to think about pulling together a collection of pieces from the portfolio, I think that I will tend to select very sparingly from the poems that are not in my own voice.  In this case, they just seem to have less of a place in the project than the others.

On another note, I’ve been able to play around with the new camera that I got for this project a few weeks ago.  Fall at Duke is such a beautiful time to take pictures, so I’ve been able to use the scenery as an opportunity to experiment with the various settings on the camera in preparation for taking photos of the people I interview as well as of my trip to Israel over Winter Break.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve begun thinking more about writing for children.  As I think back on my own experiences reading as a child, I vividly remember encountering stories that made me think more about the world or wrestle with conflicts or concepts that confused me.  The themes that I’m exploring in this collection of writing—the effects of walls and borders on the human experience—are complex and sometimes challenging to absorb emotionally.  However, I believe that this is all the more reason to try to present such ideas in a context that children can understand.

At some point during the course of this year, I would like to write a short story that is accessible to children about walls and borders.  I’ve begun to experiment a little bit by writing poetry for my nephew, Tressan. However, prose seems much more daunting (as usual).  In the book that I’m reading: The Encyclopedia of Writing and Illustrating Children’s Book, Desdemona McCannon suggests writing from a child’s point of view.  McCannon proposes this method as a means of avoiding patronizing the reader.  In addition, she comments: “This may sound obvious, but a writer for children needs to keep in mind that children see a special “slice’ of the world.  They are physically smaller than adults, and their senses tend to be sharper.  They are experiencing many things for the first time, so their observations are especially intense” (60).  I’m not yet sure exactly what I wish to write on, but I certainly hope to explore McCannon’s strategy of writing from a child’s point of view.

Today at a Borderwork(s) lunch gathering with Macrina Cardenas Alarcon (of the Mexican Solidarity Network), one of the professors of the Humanities Lab mentioned that on the North Korea/South Korea border lies some of the most rare and beautiful wildlife in the world.

An article online at the Bankok Post explains:

“The DMZ is a buffer strip extending for two kilometres (1.25 miles) each side of the actual borderline between North and South. But the area is also home to animals including musk deer, elk, wild boar, and rare birds.

The edge of the zone is fenced and heavily fortified but the DMZ itself has been largely untouched by humankind since the 1950-53 war.

As a result, it is home to some 2,716 species of plants and animals including many endangered species, the ministry said in a statement.

(“S. Korea seeks wildlife listing for tense border area”.  Bankok Post.  23 September 2011.  http://www.bangkokpost.com/lite/news/258006/s-korea-seeks-wildlife-listing-for-tense-border-area)

The Border Between South Korea and North Korea (Wikipedia Commons)

This statement intrigued me.  I found it somewhat baffling that a border that has been the location of so much violence and a cause of grief and despair to so many people could be one of the world’s most precious wildlife resources.  However, as my thesis director Robin Kirk pointed out, this situation is replicated in uninhabited borderlands all over the world.  In fact, this summer in N. Ireland, our group of a handful of Duke students climbed Cave Hill, one of the small country’s most prized places of natural beauty.  As in the case of the North Korea/South Korea border, the reason that Cave Hill is so pristine is that is was largely unoccupied by the local people over a long period of time because of political struggles (in the case of Cave Hill, the area was a British army base).

I’m not sure how this aspect of borderlands will show up in my work, but I know that as I continue my reading and writing, I’ll be thinking about this possibility of finding beauty in even the most desolate of borders and keeping an eye out for additional examples.

Starting my reading list for this project this week has been a lot of fun.  The first book on my list is The Map As Art: Conteporary Artists Explore Cartography by Katherine Harmon.  This book features beautiful pictures of pieces by dozens of artists exploring maps as artwork.

In her introduction, Harmon writes, “Is there any motif so malleable, so ripe for appropriation, as maps?  They can act as shorthand for ready metaphors: seeking location and experiences dislocation, bringing order to chaos, exploring ratios of scale, charting new terrains” (10).

The projects featured in Harmon’s collection range from the lighthearted (meticulous maps of Europe and South America created from laundry strewn on the floor), to the more serious, like the work of Alban Biaussat, pictured below.  Biaussat captured the “green line” marking the border between Israel and Palestine.  By using large green balls and long sheets of bright green ribbon, Biaussat demonstrates visibly where the invisible green line lies today.

From the Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art Website, photograph by Alban Biaussat

I would love to use this project as a jumping off point for some of the visual arts work that I will complete in the spring.  We’ll see!

While I’ve done a bit of blogging for courses during my two years at Duke, I’ve never tried anything quite like this before.  I’m creating this blog out of a desire to track my readings, encounters, and reflections over the coming months as they relate to a year-long creative project that I hope will emerge from these studies. Over the coming months, I intend to use this blog as a space to reflect on readings on walls and borders from my Independent Study with Robin Kirk as well as to respond to readings and experiences as they relate to my creative project (hopefully an interactive poetry and fiction exhibit).

It’s hard to know quite where to start, both with my independent readings and with writing.  The more I consider the topic of walls and borders, the broader the category seems… I’m trying to start producing work by consider some of the walls that I already know.

I’m just starting to learn about the West Bank Wall that the Israeli army built in 2003.  

But here are a couple that I’m much more familiar with:

Peace Wall in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Wall around Duke University’s East Campus

All three have been built for very different purposes and have certainly exacted different reactions from members of the communities in conflict.  Nevertheless, I’m starting to believe that while the stories behind walls are unique and remarkably complex, human beings living in walled spaces often experience similar questions and emotions and maybe even come to similar conclusions about what the presence of a wall means for them personally, for their families, and for their community.  Looking forward to considering these issues more fully in the coming weeks.