Elon Musk dies on Mars? There’s a poem for that!’ That analyzes the program description of the festival. There is a significant focus on North America, with poet Claudia Rankine, among others.
Of all the people you’d want to see in a poem, Elon Musk might be the last. Even if you die on another planet in our solar system. You might think: so what, Like Twitter, poetry creates another planet, a separate universe. But you are wrong. Those attending the 53rd edition of Poetry International next weekend (June 9-11) will realize that there is no gap between the world and poetry.
Elon Musk dies on Mars? There’s a poem for that!’, Explains the program description of the ceremony. The line is borrowed from the Polish poet Radoslaw Jurczak. In his poem, Musk is a lonely, Netflixing and disconnected man. So not very different from reality; The South African-American tech entrepreneur positioned himself outside the normal order. Jurczak comforts him: “There is no pain, there is an empathetic LED light.” But if you want the real world, not artificially connected ideas, you better go to Rotterdam.
The festival has a significant focus on North America. Five of the seventeen poets are from America. Among them is one of the most important poets of the last two decades: Claudia Rankine. He is the author of several anti-racist classics, including Don’t let me be lonely And Citizen: An American Song, A Dutch translation of this will be launched during the poem. Believe that the world is in it. Citizen A series of lyrics, thoughts and reflections on what words do to the body. Examples Rankin cites range from children to world stars Serena Williams and Zinedine Zidane. ‘And where is the safest place,’ she asks her readers at one point, ‘should that place be somewhere other than the body?’ It’s the words Rankin writes, pouring out those words, “hanging in the air like pollen,” so the throat closes—”You cough so long.”
You want to send that thought to everyone, but certainly to the army of mini-musks who seek the sympathy of LED light every day. Look away from your screen for a moment and see the world. “It’s Earth,” Jurczak tells Musk, “it’s yours/ but not Earth: watching Earth/ is like watching Netflix in two separate rooms.” Tweeters and Mastodons love short messages: they can even read poetry.
