HALL OF THE DECOMMISSIONED PANTHEON

(Soma)tic Poetry Ritual Response To

Art of Its Own Making
for the Pulitzer Foundation

  Thinking within strict limits is stifling.

--Christian Bök

The Mona Lisa was wrapped in fine red satin and sealed in a specially designed wooden box before being transported to the countryside in 1939.  Art in the middle of war needs dedicated stewards to keep it hidden from invaders.  Even with the most trusted well-trained people a museum’s curators and other staff can fall prey to enemy gunfire, poison gas or drone attacks.  You are in the museum alone at night and the staff’s dead bodies are stacked in the basement.  You have a chance to save one piece of art before the looting begins, what do you save?  What are your criteria for choosing which to save, because it’s the most valuable, the most popular, because it’s your favorite, or what?  Take notes.

(Soma)tic poetry rituals provide a window into the creative viability of everything around us, initiating an extreme present.  Documentary notes are not important; in fact the movements we make inside the ritual inform the way the notes come out of us, no need for exacting detail.  Take notes as fast as you can, faster than you can think about what you are writing.  Later type the notes into a single document, print it out then carry it around to extract lines and words to shape your poem.  Approach your chosen work of art, thinking about the safest way to remove it from its mount on the wall or floor.  What tools do you imagine needing?  Stop to take more notes.  You will live with it hidden in your attic or as a lover under the covers next to you.  How will it feel seeing this coveted object each day?  Take notes.

Create a password for your hidden art by first choosing an ancient god or goddess.  What is your favorite home appliance?  Think of the nights you turn them all on to sit and listen in the dark for the most pleasing of the chorus.  Combine the god to the appliance, like Jupiter Egg Beater.  Take notes.  Go into a stall in one of the museum restrooms and write the password onto your naked flesh.  Take notes.  Write it again harder, then harder.  Take more notes.  Walk up to a stranger and say the password.  Just say it.  How do they react?  Take more notes.