|
A revisioning of the preamble of the constitution of the usa
Artist(s): J.Benka
Edition:100
Year:2004
*Recorded live at the Bowery Poetry Club*
—
Long download, but this is the whole thing. Inspiring and truthfilled beauty!
MP3 of "The Preamble..." (MP3, 16.4 MB)
THOUGHTS ON THE PREAMBLE
Our constitution is a secular prayer, a guideline for an experiment in
government, an empty scaffold to project a nation upon. Its words belong not
so much to any single author as they do to an entire country. The job of
interpreting these words lies in the hands of the judicial branch, every
American, and Jen Benka.
More ambitious than reading between the lines, Jen Benka writes between the
words, giving us one poem for each word in the preamble to the Constitution.
Her hypertext makes manifest the job of every writer: to scrutinize each word
both in context and within itself.
This expansive work is the public made personal, the rhetorical made poetic,
the political made political, cynical, and witty.
Benka summarizes the United States as "a box of longing with 50 drawers"
and gives us a book of longing with 52 pages...a melting pot of forms and
interpretations.
Mark Wagner, Booklyn Artists Alliance.
|
