I like the elusive quality of this, Edmund - the quotes are linguistically
wonderful, challenging to cut through to fully see, and then, wow. The
witnesses(ex-slaves), tho released, still seem still unanchored in the new -
the mirage of war/emancipation still as if floating in a mirage.
And then the quotes raise the contemporary question, as to where your
witness stands in relationship to the recorded. Hallucinatory, yes. But how
does one continue with the appearance of these hallucinations. It's kind of
the issue with Reznikoff's historical renditions - the obsession becomes its
own meaning, or, to further the question, when does merely absorbing
historical evidence become a kind of pornography?? (If one defines
pornography as something that gives birth to nothing but a reiteration of
progressively less stimulating, numbing images??)
I have had this struggle before with compelling historical images,
I want to see a twelve page essay by morning! Just kidding!!
Stephen V
> < Dey says I wuz jes fo' years ole when de war wuz over,
> but I sho' does member dat day dem Yankee sojers come down de road. >
>
> < Mary and Willie Durham wuz my mammy and pappy, en dey
> belong ter Marse Spence Durham at Watkinsville in slav'ry times. >
>
> < When word cum dat de Yankee sojers wuz on de way,
> Marse Spence en his sons wuz 'way at de war. >
>
> < Miss Betsey tole my pappy ter take en hide de hosses
> down in de swamp. >
>
> < My mammy help Miss Betsey sew up de silver in de
> cotton bed ticks. >
>
> < Dem Yankee sojers nebber did find our whitefolks'
> hosses and deir silver. >
>
> -------------------
> Source: LULA FLANNIGAN, Ex-slave, 78 years.
> A Folk History of Slavery in the United States / From Interviews with Former
> Slaves
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