The Art of Disquiet Truth
Art Has Arisen from Tragedy, Social Injustice and Harrowing Events.
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Content warning: Some images depict violence and gun violence in particular
Great art arises from tragedy, social injustice and harrowing events. It’s important to remember this, especially now, and not stay silent or turn away from what disturbs or angers us. Instead we must engage with it and express ourselves in some way.
Below are some examples of art that does exactly that. The work resonates because it not only reveals humanity but truth. Feel free to share your own work in the comments below. Remember we are all friends here and we will be respectful and constructive with our feedback.
I even shared one of my own photographs that I took early in my study and practice of fine art photography. It is my response to organic life dying into and being caught by the artificial building around us.
“Remember” by Langston Hughes
Remember
The days of bondage—
And remembering—
Do not stand still.
Go to the highest hill
And look down upon the town
Where you are yet a slave.
Look down upon any town in Carolina
Or any town in Maine, for that matter,
Or Africa, your homeland—
And you will see what I mean for you to see—
The white hand:
The thieving hand.
The white face:
The lying face.
The white power:
The unscrupulous power
That makes of you
The hungry wretched thing you are today.
“Tule Lake Internment Camp” by Muin Ozaki
“fuchusei” to
Kokuin osare
Tule Lake ni
Okurareshi mizo
Kuyuru koto naku
“Disloyal”
With papers so stamped
I am relocated to Tule Lake
But for myself
A clear conscience
“Me and a Gun” by Tori Amos
5 a.m. Friday morning
Thursday night far from sleep
I'm still up and driving
Can't go home obviously
So I'll just change direction
'Cause they'll soon know where I live
And I wanna live
Got a full tank and some chips
It was me and a gun
And a man on my back
And I sang Holy holy
As he buttoned down his pants
You can laugh, it's kind of funny
The things you think at times like these
Like I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
Yes, I wore a slinky red thing
Does that mean I should spread
For you, your friends
Father, Mister Ed?
It was me and a gun
And a man on my back
But I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
And I know what this means
Me and Jesus, a few years back
Used to hang and he said
"It's your choice, babe, just remember
I don't think you'll be back
In three days time, so you choose well"
Tell me what's right, is it my right
To be on my stomach of Fred Seville?
It was me and a gun
And a man on my back
But I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
And do you know Carolina
Where the biscuits are soft and sweet?
These things go through your head
When there's a man on your back
You're pushed flat on your stomach
It's not a classic Cadillac
Me and a gun
And a man on my back
But I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
“Phobia” by Najwan Darwish. Translated by Ahmad Diab
They will evict me from the city before the dark
They say I did not pay my air bills,
I did not pay the price of light.
They will evict me from the city before the evening time
They say I did not pay the sun’s fees or the cloud’s dues,
They will evict me before the sunrise
Because I bickered with the night without praising the stars
They will evict me from the city before I leave the womb
Because for seven months I scrutinized existence and wrote poetry
They will evict me from existence because I sided with the void
They will evict me from the void because I am suspect of contacting existence
They will evict me from existence and the void because I am the son of becoming They will evict me
“The Survivor” by Primo Levi. Translated by Ruth Feldman And Brian Swann
Once more he sees his companions' faces
Livid in the first faint light,
Gray with cement dust,
Nebulous in the mist,
Tinged with death in their uneasy sleep.
At night, under the heavy burden
Of their dreams, their jaws move,
Chewing a non-existant turnip.
”Stand back, leave me alone, submerged people,
Go away. I haven't dispossessed anyone,
Haven't usurped anyone's bread.
No one died in my place. No one.
Go back into your mist.
It's not my fault if I live and breathe,
Eat, drink, sleep and put on clothes.”
“Power” by Audre Lorde
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.
A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.
Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.
I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”
“Music Swims Back to Me” by Anne Sexton
Wait Mister. Which way is home?
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room,
four ladies, over eighty,
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me
and I can feel the tune they played
the night they left me
in this private institution on a hill.
Imagine it. A radio playing
and everyone here was crazy.
I liked it and danced in a circle.
Music pours over the sense
and in a funny way
music sees more than I.
I mean it remembers better;
remembers the first night here.
It was the strangled cold of November;
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in the head.
I have forgotten all the rest.
They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.
and there are no signs to tell the way,
just the radio beating to itself
and the song that remembers
more than I. Oh, la la la,
this music swims back to me.
The night I came I danced a circle
and was not afraid.
Mister?
This is an eloquent photo/ poetic / essay. Kudos.
Art arises like a lotus from mud.
Thank you for sharing.
Patty