The meaning of poetry is determined not only by words on a page but also by what surrounds those words. These outside spaces can be realised in images, in sounds, in architecture, in fashion, in food, in the wet preponderance of traffic, in the exhalations of modems, in the scream of a shoe, and in events; the fabric of poets and readers as social beings comes to bear on poetry.
As poets we have a responsibility to explore these extra-linguistic categories, first by recognising and reading them on their own terms as significant determinants of meaning, and then by drawing them into dialogue, and if necessary, conflict, with language and, by extension, poetry.
It is only then that we can get a clearer sense of the broader language strategies and tactics that need to, and can be, employed within our poetry as we attempt to treasure, interrogate, shape and change the world in which we find ourselves.
For Openned Eyes, David-Baptiste Chirot has expertly brought together twelve poets, many of whom are constantly working at intersections between language and politics, visual art, sculpture and ethnography, among other disciplines. These poets are committed to thinking the poem and the outside-world together, and Openned welcomes and celebrates that achievement.
