Legibility : An Antifascist Poetics

"This Pivot book provides a wide-ranging and diverse commentary on issues of legibility (and illegibility) around poetry, antifascist pacifist activism, environmentalism and the language of protest. A timely meditation from poet John Kinsella, the book focuses on participation in protest, demonstration and intervention on behalf of human rights activism, and writing and acting peacefully but persistently against tyranny. The book also examines how we make records and what we do with them, how we might use poetry to act or enact and/or to discuss such necessities and events. A book about community, human and animal rights and the way poetry can be used as a peaceful and decisive means of intervention in moment of public social and environmental crisis. Ultimately, it is a poetics against fascism with a focus on the well-being of the biosphere and all it contains."-- Page 4 of cover Ode to Disarmament 6 Contents 9 1 An Antifa Pacifist Poetics 11 2 Handwriting Protest 15 3 Marks 27 4 Privilege, Property, Oppression 34 5 Modes of Protest 44 Without Marching Bands 45 Fascists not Liking the Term ‘Fascist’? 55 Some Fascistic Tendencies of the ‘Yellow Jacket’ Movement 58 Being Legible Against Acts of Hate 59 Villanelle of the Grasses 61 6 Legibility of Journal Extracts Jan 2020—followed by Extracts from Handwritten Journal 63 7 Micro- and Macro-Aggressions and Social Contracts 98 8 Versions of Mallarmé 103 9 Against Competition/Against Winning... and ‘Consequence Theory’ 111 10 Note on Journal Extracts 2017–2020: Followed by Extracts from Handwritten Journals 131 11 Palestine and Israel 151 12 On Injustice. On Peace. On Justice. On Peace... 161 13 Pandemic(s) 177 Bio Level 4 181 14 Choice and Whose Rights We Are Talking About? Cruelty and Animal Rights... Justice, Genetics and Consensus 184 Scanning Consensus 192 15 Empathy, not ‘Property’ 196 16 Conclusion 203 CODA 212 Index 215