Hello!
Happy new year folx! It may be late to be thinking about the newness of a thing 4 months into its existence. Sometimes lateness is what tends to make good things great. This sentiment captures the story of how it went watching Ryan Coogler's phenomenal "SINNERS" in theatres over the past weekend. We waited 35 minutes into scheduled screening time for the film to start! Irregardless, the film was a joy to see. I sincerely hope that absolute goodness and an abundance of wholeness continues flowing your way in 2025.
Staying with the theme of lateness, I have a confession: i have myself been tarrying with something. It is has been the obsession of my daydreams really. Before i tell you what it is, i think it's suffice to say that being flexible with obsessions have been a productive place for me. The burdgeoning creative place in my writing practice. The benthic topographies drain of myriad interconnections to reveal a singular stasis relief pattern - i read in one place, existing before it dissipates, and reform someplace new.
I have been obsessed with the concept of a moving referent in creative literary art - namely fiction and non-fiction prose and poetry. What is a moving referent? To my provisions as a writer they might include: syntax that militates towards flexible and inclusive ends, experimental narrative strategies using myriad interconnections that void dependence on any ascribed independent success, and lastly, systems of inquiry or schools of thought which implore one to be ready to engage with collective interests.
Put another way, a moving referent is a repetition, or a ritual influence. This is how Dr. Amber Rose Johnson described the fuction of the word "it" in Kamau Braithwaite's poem "Negus" in an episode of "Poem Talks". The potency of past and present incompleteness imbuing non-linear futures, obviating of itself holding the present (moment) are features that fascinate me deeply. I feel drawn to pursue this thread and try and develop questions around this thematic point in literature, and to gather what registers of body logic are confined by landscape as a built environment.
It's a new series in honour of World Book Day! Stay tuned for the first installment in my series.