{"id":4814,"date":"2015-11-12T19:52:46","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T19:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=4814"},"modified":"2015-12-05T13:32:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-05T13:32:57","slug":"our-biosemiotic-clay-is-african-a-poem-by-ian-irvine-hobson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/our-biosemiotic-clay-is-african-a-poem-by-ian-irvine-hobson\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Biosemiotic Clay is African. A Poem by Ian Irvine Hobson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Graphic<\/a><\/p>\n

\r\n\r\nI - Nubian Alchemy<\/strong>\r\n\r\nKemet, al kemet<\/em> - the black and fertile earth<\/strong>\r\n       the black and fertile origins of humanity.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nPrimordial mother, sister, lover, daughter<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\nEventually, by laws of genetic entanglement,<\/strong>\r\n       (go check the mitochondrial record)<\/strong>\r\nwe (re)trace the contours of her absence<\/strong>\r\n       to the mountains that fed the Blue Nile<\/strong>\r\n       (the ice caps were glacial back then).<\/strong>\r\n\r\nOrchestrated histories veil her presence<\/strong>\r\n       at the base of the mountain<\/strong>\r\n       at the base of your spine<\/strong>\r\n       at the heart of the geometric benevolence<\/strong>\r\n               that designed the oldest pyramids.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nYoung African woman with palettes, brushes,<\/strong>\r\n       measuring tools and golden mallet. <\/strong>\r\nAfter each inundation she calculated<\/strong>\r\n       a new patchwork of fields<\/strong>\r\nto feed the hungry populace. <\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe rich luminescence of her wisdom skin -<\/strong>\r\n       as many statues attest - <\/strong>\r\nis primarily African:<\/strong>\r\n       black sunrise of the written word<\/strong>\r\n       black sunrise of numerous civilisations<\/strong>\r\n\r\nAcknowledge her thus - for<\/strong>\r\n       she took you swimming in the Nile.<\/strong>\r\nDid Michaelangelo imagine the Nubian <\/em><\/strong>\r\n       Pharaohs white - like Jesus?<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\nBack then, words were hieroglyphic images<\/strong>\r\n       - phonetics yet to be invented - and<\/strong>\r\n       she wrote in the glory of paint. <\/strong>\r\nThey begged her<\/strong>\r\n       Colour us a liveable future.<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\nII - (Quantum) Woman Dressed in Stars<\/strong>\r\n\r\nShe takes you flying among the stars<\/strong>\r\n       (and every vowel restored)<\/strong>\r\nYou sense<\/strong>\r\n       habitual memory contract to a<\/strong>\r\ntiny pin-point of sub-atomic energy\/light<\/strong>\r\n       it flares against the universal nothingness.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe hieroglyphs swirl - so many narratives,<\/strong>\r\n       so many possible lives - until<\/strong>\r\nfragile scintillae appear, then cluster, as though <\/strong>\r\n       glued to invisible structures.<\/strong>\r\nYou watch them float like clumps of possibility<\/strong>\r\n       (like clumps of future memories).<\/strong>\r\n\r\nYour life is fluid again -<\/strong>\r\n       all good things are possible<\/strong>\r\n       and all dangerous things -<\/strong>\r\nher skin, like the coffins of your former selves,<\/strong>\r\n       is a gallery of marvelous images.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n(Seshet) = the hidden numeric order<\/strong>\r\n       Our need for numbers and images and words<\/strong>\r\n       to strengthen living structures<\/strong>\r\n\r\nHer slim ankles, her calves, her hips, her breasts<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe lovers exchange gifts: <\/strong>\r\n       charms, formulae, hieroglyphs, stories<\/strong>\r\n       (photons, electrons - elementary particle-waves)<\/strong>\r\nA biosemiotic exchange to animate <\/strong>\r\n       otherwise passive clay.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nDo you sense it <\/strong>\r\n       the first ragged gasp of a new becoming?<\/strong><\/pre>\n
 
\n 
\n\"Ian<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nIan Irvine (Hobson) is an Australian-based poet\/lyricist, fiction writer and non-fiction writer. His work has featured in publications as diverse as Humanitas<\/em> (USA), The Antigonish Review<\/em> (Canada), Tears in the Fence <\/em>(UK), Linq <\/em>(Australia) and Takahe (NZ)<\/em>, among many others. His work has also appeared in two Australian national poetry anthologies: Best Australian Poems 2005 <\/em>(Black Ink Books) and Agenda: \u2018Australian Edition\u2019, 2005<\/em>. He is the author of three books and co-editor of a number of literary journals \u2013 Scintillae 2012<\/em>, The Animist ezine <\/em>(7 editions, 1998-2001) and Painted Words <\/em>(10 editions 2005-2014). He coordinates the Professional Writing and Editing program at Bendigo Kangan Institute (Bendigo & Melbourne, Australia) and has taught in the same program at Victoria University, St. Albans, Melbourne. He has also taught history and social theory at La Trobe University (Bendigo, Australia) and holds a PhD for his work on creative, normative and dysfunctional forms of morbid ennui. Web site: http:\/\/www.authorsden.com\/ianirvine<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>
\n 
\nThe above poem is an Excerpt from a collection of poems Awake in the Chamber of Darkness.The Egyptian Sequence. Publisher: Mercurius Press, Australia, 2015.  \u2018Awake in the Chamber of Darkness\u2019 is copyright Ian Irvine (Hobson), 2015, all rights reserved.
\nAcknowledgements: \u2018Hypatia and the Ruined Serapeum\u2019 was published in Poetry Life and Times (UK\/Spain) in Aug. 2015.
\nImage: Seshat writing. This image is in the public domain. <\/em>
\n 
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\n 
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I – Nubian Alchemy Kemet, al kemet – the black and fertile earth the black and fertile origins of humanity. Primordial mother, sister, lover, daughter Eventually, by laws of genetic entanglement, (go check the mitochondrial record) we (re)trace the contours of her absence to the mountains that fed the Blue Nile (the ice caps were … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,43],"tags":[655,18,136,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4814"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4908,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4814\/revisions\/4908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}