Progressive social movements do not simply produce statistics and narratives of oppression; rather, the best ones do what great poetry always does: transport us to another place, compel us to relive horrors and, more importantly, enable us to imagine a new society[…] In the poetics of struggle and lived experience, in the utterances of ordinary folk, in the cultural products of social movements, in the reflections of activists, we discover many different cognitive maps of the future, of the world not yet born

Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, pp. 9-10

“Poetry from the future” is an oft-cited phrase used by Marx in the Eighteenth Brumaire: “the social revolution of the nineteenth century can only draw its poetry from the future, not from the past.” Kara Keeling writes about Marx’s formulation of “poetry from the future” as “a formal (‘poetry,’ with its associated lyricism, fragmentation, and logics) and temporal (‘from the future’) disruption, which functions primarily on the level of affect to resist narration and qualitative description. It is a felt presence of the unknowable, the content of which exceeds its expression and therefore points toward a different epistemological, if not ontological and empirical, regime” (p. 83). I’m drawn to the idea of poetry from the future as a means to resist making sense through narration or defining some concrete alternative from within the logic of the violence. I want to disrupt it, not to name its claims as false but to start to uncover new truths. Our group project is rooted in iterative definition, and that’s because we understand a relationship between the ontological and epistemological. How do I engage with the still-living archives of racial capitalism to not only shake off their ways of knowing the world, but also their claims on what is? How do I disrupt this artifact from the future?

I think of M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!, gathered from the text of Gregson v. Gilbert, the only public document related to the 1781 massacre of approximately 150 African people by a slave-ship captain intending to collect insurance on them as lost property instead of selling them into slavery. Philip cuts up the decision and and assembles its words into fragments that shout, whisper, moan, sing, chant in an anti-narrative poetic form, breathing life and pain and death back into an otherwise horrifyingly reductive narrative.

Gregson v. Gilbert and HOLC’s residential security maps both demonstrate evidence and reification of a speculative economy. “The Zong massacre reveals that the economy of the transatlantic slave trade was a speculative one, predicated on the belief that the future would confirm the present values of slaves and other commodities of trade” (Keeling, 28). The transatlantic slave trade ran on credit, European boats boarded and sailed, people kidnapped and transported on the promise of profitable exchange to come. Lively futures disposed of for profitable futures. The language of HOLC area descriptions is rife with speculative predictions and life-altering decisions made on those speculated futures in attempts to maximize profit: “Future development will be heavier foreign,” and “In future desirability will undoubtedly decline due to gradual enlargement of blighted territory on the south and west borders,” both claims followed by the same directive, “Property, if acquired, should be sold rather than held.” The phrase “no future” repeats itself. The entire intent of the residential securities maps and accompanying area descriptions was to secure profit. This is not about individual and community human security in the places we reside; this is about identifying “a fungible, negotiable financial instrument” in the form of real estate. It is about securing a future for capital.

Poetry from the future, for me, offers an opportunity to speak back from the “no future” (more precisely, I write from a place described as “threatened with negro encroachment” so perhaps I write from the position of future encroacher). From this position, I can take these archival documents and scrap their claims, cut them up, make them say something different. I move between then and now and throw off the historical inevitability. These same words, these same documents, these same artifacts– they can say something different, they can do something different. It’s a yes to worldbuilding and also a yes to continuity, engaging in the practice of continuity. I can get to know these documents intimately without being seduced by them; I can learn them with care and, through poetry, transform them with care. The hope is that their underlying logics fracture and split, giving way to a different epistemology and, possibly, different ontologies.  

A draft of a poem, its words gathered from area descriptions:

No loans
No odors
No green vegetation to be seen
No prospects
No Negro families
And probably never will
Japs are being pushed out
Nothing at all moving here
Obsolete area
No future
 
Little future
Laid out
Dead-end
The future hopeless
Cinder Brick Stone and Frame
Will remain weak
 
Due to concentrated effort
To keep up the barrier
A natural barrier
A natural protective barrier
Protected by fence
Picturesque fences
And walls
A high wall separates
A high wall prevents
Protected by mountains
Protected by railroad
Protected by deed restrictions
Keeping out infiltration
Preventing their spread
Keep out anyone who might be considered undesirable for various and sundry reasons
 
Low grade population
High grade negro
The poor and trashy type
The Onondaga
Half breeds
Undesirable white population
Inferior white D grade property
Communistic reputation
And Italians
And Russians
And Jews
And Slavs
And Greeks
And Syrians
And Puerto Ricans
Confined to only members of their own race
Undesirable to others
Values would be confined
If acquired, should be sold
 
Development takes place
Construction takes place
Promotion takes place
A distinct threat of infiltration
Bank failures caused untold hardship
 
Speculative buying
Speculative builders
Speculative development
Caused untold hardship
Future growth
Future outlook
Future desirability
Future development
Wrong side of the railroad
Wrong side of the tracks
Wrong side of the river
Located on the wrong side of town
The future of the area as a whole will be down
The few negroes are confined
Threatened
Expired
Restricted
Neglected
Abandoned
 
No future
If acquired
Should be sold
Should be sold
Should be sold promptly
Should be sold
No future
Should be
Sacrificed
No future
Should be sold rather than held
Little future
Should be held
Should be held
Should be held rather than sold
Should be held
Should be held
I am told
I am informed
A better feeling exists
 
We have felt a better feeling
We have felt a better future
It is here
It is in Our homes
It is in Our families
It is in Our strikes
We are a distinct threat to the banks
Undoubtedly, a growth
Odors, railroads, colored people, etc.
Smoke and dirt
Everywhere evident
Everywhere mobile
Everywhere encroaching
We are the limits
We are the center
Anyone who might be considered undesirable for various and sundry reasons
We are likely to develop through demolishment
Demolition of capitalists
Demolition of business men
Demolition of politicians
Demolition of banks
No more mortgages
There is a shifting foundation
Home for the aged
Home for children
Home for the blind
Home for poor
But policemen were killed here
Get out
Give up
We are scattered throughout
We have lost interest
We have lost homes
We have lost property
We have not lost each other
The land has not lost US
We will not live anywhere else
Little future should be held not sold
Little future will continue to hold