READERS+WRITERS JOURNAL
“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs.” – Ansel Adams
What is the relationship between poetry and the selfie? This was one of the questions I sent a number of poets working in different modes. I said they could answer the question, or not, or if they wanted they could include some other type of text. I said they could interpret the term “selfie” as they saw it. I expected an array of interpretations and visions. The poets did not let me down. I was moved by each performance of the self, with their particular risks and vulnerabilities and joys and tragedies. I was fascinated by the ways in which the selfies expanded and warped with the accompanying texts, and how, the longer I looked, the selfies themselves became a kind of poetry, a song of the selfies. I then started to think about our inability to escape the performance of the self, either in language, or image, or in any other form we create—no matter how much one longs for the other, for the skies. What, or who, is waiting for us on the other side of the mirror? Perhaps to really see, we must first witness our selfie. >>READ MORE
