You posed the Southern Question
while waging war in the trenches
of bourgeoisie fantasy.
You drank languages & histories.Mussolini drank your blood.
Unswayed by victory,
you refused to genuflect before teleology.
Breaking with Hegel–surpassing Croce–you made prose into poetry.
Fragile wrists pouring over notebooks
in a staccato more rigid
than the bars of your cell.You are the particles of shivering light,
on the crossbars of your smoky windowpanes.
Recipient of deposits made by history
without the benefit of an inventory.The task, you said, is to make that inventory.
You are the politics your body rejected.
Optimism of the will,
pessimism of the intellect.You are eyes-wide-open despair,
hope plus seeing, will plus being.
Vico’s son, made by history
the “we” born into poetry.You are the name on the lips
of every freedom hungry soul.
Agitator of peasant visionaries,
mobilizer of dreams forged in factories,democratizer of beauty, leading
the Communist Party
to question reality.
For the US Senator testifyingto the House Ways & Means Committee,
you are an agitator
for the destruction
of Western democracy.The jottings your sister-in-law
removed from your prison cell quietly,
the unpublished masterpiece
that will merge with eternity.Family torn from your arms,
your wife removed in Russia,
your son seen once in the airport
before he vanished from your horizon.You directed his education
from your prison cell,
Gramsci, whose mother
considered her sonthe state’s enemy number one
Anti-utopian of universal equality,
theorizer of the new society,
you are no martyr, Gramsci,just an organizer
accelerating
the revolution
rooted in reality.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones