»The choral I – Writing in the name of«

Whoever dares to name names assumes responsibility. Whatever can be lightly said in the name of one remains unspeakable in the name of another or it’s an intrusion. Perhaps this is the origins of poetry’s century-old desire to speak in the name of others, to masquerade as a chorus, to opt for pseudonyms, to appear as the mouthpiece of gods, of nature or a community.
»I am the people – the mob – the mass. Do you know that all the great work is done through me?« In 1916, the poet Carl Sandburg transformed his lyrical self into a chorus that paradoxically speaks these lines in the first person singular. On YouTube, you can find children from across the globe reciting this poem into their cameras in slums, on garbage dumps and sofas at home, but also at school competitions: a medial “choral I” with a free-floating identity.
»Speaking in the name of X« is an invitation to take part in a poetic role-playing that creates poetic freedom, liberating from the constraints of identity or creating new identities. As such, the eighth edition of Poetica wants to investigate the representational nature of poems: Who speaks for whom? Whose name is poetry written in? And what roles do the names of things, their properties and materiality, their specific sound in the original and in translation play in this?
The poets of Poetica 8 speak on behalf of the frilled dragon, the termite, the kangaroo. They take a stand on behalf of communities, on behalf of the untouchables in India and the Murri in Australia, on behalf of the LGBTQ movement in Nigeria and migrant women workers in China. Even the proper names »February«, »Fogarty« or »Sukirtharani« tell of caste and class struggles, of oppression and colonization, but also of emancipation through poetry. For representation, according to Karl Marx, should not only be regarded »as a concession to defenseless weakness, to impotence.” Rather, it is also a sign of “self-reliant vitality.« For one week, Poetica 8 aims to give proof of this vitality of poetic representation.

Christian Filips