On Memorial Day

Installation View, Emily Prince
at the Saatchi Gallery,
via Saatchi Gallery

Today, with Memorial Day in mind, I was thinking of artists who've attempted to capture the scale of loss the US and other countries have experienced as a result of the two recent wars (one sort-of-but-not-really-ended, in Iraq, the other ongoing with a sort of-deadline-in-sigh, in Afghanistan), and I recalled having come across the work of Emily Prince, a California-based artist specializing in process-driven, often durational art, who since 2004 has been, in her words, "drawing wallet-photo sized portraits of the American servicemen and women who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." (Each of the images includes a drawn portrait, information on the casualty, and color-coding keyed to the deceased soldier's skin color.) The project's title is American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not including the wounded, nor the Iraqis, nor the Afghans, and she has exhibited in in various cities across the globe for the last 7 years.

Emily Prince’s Installation American Servicemen and Women…
at the Saatchi Gallery, via ArtDaily

I learned about her powerful metonymic artwork via an online article I read on her 2010 show at the Saatchi Gallery. She is still drawing the portraits, and reconfiguring them, and so long as we have troops stationed in Iraq and a war, however hazy its aims since the deposition years ago of the Taliban and the subsequent assassination of Osama bin Laden, she will have portraits to draw, stories to record. But on day like today, her drawings can stand, as I see it, not just for the soldiers lost in these two wars, but for all the US servicepeople and civilians working with or on behalf of the military who have sacrificed their lives throughout US history.

American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not including the wounded, nor the Iraqis, nor the Afghans, by Emily Prince

As naïve and simplistic as it sounds, we have to push for a time when Emily Prince will have no more US soldiers slain in Iraq or Afghanistan to draw.  A time when no artist, for that matter, will have cause to draw any deceased or wounded US or US-coalition military personnel, or the civilians in the countries they have been ordered to invade. It is not impossible. War should be as rare as coelacanths, or pure rose alba, or fullerenes, or byssus, or Escorial wool, no matter how frequently warmongers invoke it, or commanders-in-chief send troops to prosecute it. Let's remember our fallen servicemembers today, but also let's work to ensure they will be few in number in the future.

Some below images from Emily Prince's project; all images copyrighted, and for illustrative use only.

Kaite M. Loenksen (© Emily Prince)

Curtis L. Glawson, Jr. (© Emily Prince)

Gabriel J. Figueroa (© Emily Prince)

Poem: Saadi Youssef

It feels like it's been eons since I last blogged, and an even longer interval since I've posted a poem, so here's one by a potential candidate for this year's Nobel Prize, the exiled Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef (Sa'di Yûsuf, 1934-, photo © Graywolf), translated by Libyan-American poet Khaled Mattawa. Mattawa translated and published a selection of Youssef's poems in 2002 called Without an Alphabet, Without a Face: Selected Poems (Graywolf), and though I know no Arabic, my impression of the collection is that simple lyricism of Youssef's poetry has not been lost.

My classes begin next week, all three of them in fiction writing, so I want to keep some lyric poetry in my ears (and eyes). (I've borrowed the poem below from the excellent resource site Words Without Borders.)

Silence

Winds that do not blow in the evening,
and winds that do not blow at dawn
have burdened me with a book of boughs.
I see my cry in the silence.

Night descends, blue, between staircases and stars. I see
blue trees, abandoned streets, and a country
of sand. I had a home and lost it. I had a home
and left it. How close the stars are!
They cling to my steps. O blue trees, blue
woods, night! we have ended up in a world
collapsing or beginning or dying.

Trees for severed hands. Trees for the eyes
that were gouged. Trees for the hearts turned to stone.
In the city, in the cemetery, trees sway in their blueness.
The severed hands do not wave, the gouged eyes
do not waver, the hearts turned to stone
do not move. Will they come,
the strange winds? The gardens are inhabited by silence.
The minarets have the color of old waters, people have the color
of old horses. And the Tartar books are branded
with the stamp of censorship.
Which country have you come to now? Here, you will open
a door to a torture chamber. And one day in a garden
you will see your arms, your eyes, or your speeding heart.
But you are strong today, say your word. Say it,
for after tomorrow you will begin to die.

The winds that do not blow in the evening,
the winds that do not blow at dawn.

I am beautified with the book of boughs;
and I see my cry in others' eyes.

 November 3, 1974

Copyright © 2002, 2007, Saadi Youssef, translated by Khaled Mattawa.