a curatorial content blog of modern and contemporary poetry, poetics, photography, philosophy, permaculture, and the arts

Juhani Tikkanen

Juhani Tikkanen (English version)

the lit match sputters in

dark water

long

enough

to hear

stone

move

Donna Fleischer
#Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, Week 7

Sytytetty tulitikku sihisee

         tummassa vedessä 

         tarpeeksi
         pitkään 
         kuulla
         kiven 
         liikkuvan

Donna Fleischer
#Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, Week 7
Juhani Tikkanen, Finnish translation
Juhani Tikkanen

 It is an honor to join with all people of the Occupation movement worldwide, particularly with those who took occupation of Zuccotti Park, NYC on September 17, 2011 and with my homies of #OccupyHartfordCT at Turning Point Park, Hartford, who continue to re-vision place as locus of permaculture, including people’s lives, now renamed Liberty Park. Words are vital.

American philosopher Judith Butler traveled from California to the site of the Occupation to speak with people there and she said: “We would not be here if elected officials were representing the popular will. We stand apart from the electoral process and its complicities with exploitation.  We sit and stand and move and speak, as we can, as the popular will, the one that electoral democracy has forgotten and abandoned. But we are here, and remain here, enacting the phrase, “we the people.””

Poetry enlivens. It crashes the party of illusion that is marketing’s game. Poetry is the taproot to the real mystery at the transept of living&dying, of the individual and the communal. So to have in existence an ongoing poetry anthology that includes all poets’ voices and provides accessibility to all is a mainstay of this Occupation. Every day I am humbled by the people of this movement.

Today I was surprised to learn that poet Juhani Tikkanen had translated my poem contribution to the anthology into Finnish. This too is an honor and I am appreciative. ~ yours truly, df