An erasure from The Iliad, trans. Richmond Lattimore
By Ellen Kombiyil
O
supplication,
o
fresh woven
voice
of
forced
supplication,
I
as in
swarms of bees
low in the stone, hang
in springtime.
lo of the deep sea beach
I blazing among them
hasten.
and the earth
lo
sober
and clamouring,
the
horses,
lo
dying
in numbers,
And the sea the big waves
shakes /
was shaken, and the men in tumult
love
would
in tumult
be
in love.
And
I
do not even know how
it will be accomplished.
I
am
the
heart
of
a mother,
The snake
coiled around her
and
her children.
this is
not
a prayer
hurled
into the dust, teeth gripping the soil.
the put away desire
is
Like the nations of swarming insects
or
like
the dove-cotes;
Or the
children
bore to
a modest maiden,
who was laid in bed secretly,
armoured in linen.
o
multitudinous speech of
the goddess,
the
clamour of
the burial mound of dancing
up on
it.
lo
the wild heart
lo
the held
girl
lo.
The Importance of the Arts and Humanities
The arts and humanities allow us to feel, to (re)connect with the human condition outside of our own lives, to empathize with human experiences beyond our own limited personal capacity. Sometimes we need the help of art or literature to help us see the world in a new way. Or to help us process the tremendous grief in living in the present world and its violence and wars. Or to simply create space for dialogue.
The artworks by Mia Funk that resonates most with me is Memory of Water. There is a haunting quality to the transparent figures--they are both connected to the past and commenting upon our present cultural moment of alienation and loneliness/separation. I feel the tension of the figures wanting to connect and the removal / distance / separation of being able to do so.
The creative work that I have sent is an erasure of Book Two of The Iliad. It is part of a larger project of "erasing war" that I have undertaken over the last three years. These erasures of entire books take on the form of elegies--the Chorus as lamentation--and helps the audience to connect with the profound sense of loss and grief that accompanies war (and the erased stories of women within these narratives of war). The dialogue between this poem and Mia Funk's artwork is in the separation/connection tension, and the feelings of alienation that can arise. I fundamentally see Memory of Water as a kind of elegy to the human condition, the inheritance of our current human lives.
