The Burial Poems: An introduction, a beginning

During the next few weeks, I will be driving through the interior of the United States. The main aspect of this project is that over the course of my travel I will attempt to write a poem each morning, tear it from the journal and bury it in the ground wherever I find myself. The poems will be buried in a variety of settings such as cities in the medians and small patches of dirt to be found, in the woods a top mountains, by rivers, in fields across the plains, or wherever my travels may take me. To clarify, the paper I am using is recycled, made of about sixty percent post-consumer content, and no action will be taken to preserve this paper in its burial. In fact, one aspect of these poems is that they will deteriorate over time. For the purposes of this blog and to share my experience, I will be taking two digital photos with my phone at each burial (one of the paper prior to burial, and one following) and transcribing the text of the poem within my post. Personally, I am a bit reluctant to this aspect of the project in that I do not want the picture or the text to become its own piece of art, but I acquiesce for the purpose of conveyance to those of you who find interest in this project.

The trip itself is one aspect of the project. At its base level, the trip is one of celebration. I will not be traveling alone, my wife, Wendy, will be with me. We have been married for a year, and together for almost five. Actually, part of this trip is to celebrate our one year anniversary, which took place on June 27. Unfortunately, we were not able to be together on that day due to my obligations at school in Vermont. We are beginning today in Marlborough, Ma where we will be attending a wedding for one of my cousins tomorrow. In a week we are going to be in Phoenix, Az attending a wedding for my wife’s cousin. Both cousins are female marrying men who I have met briefly, both seem to be quite kind and loving. I only mention this as a point of interest. Once we leave Arizona, we are heading back to our home in Richmond, Va where my father who has been teaching overseas, and I have not seen in almost a year is taking care of our house and dog, Orion. We intend to see sights we’ve never seen, stop in and visit with friends scattered across the country. Actually, there is a sister blog to this one therestillsomewhere.blogspot.com/ in which we will both discuss and write about our travels. I only mention this here for the reason previously stated; point of interest, conceits that may or may not inform the work of this project.

For me at this point as I look toward the horizon, there are three elements within and by which this work will be constructed. The first element is one of burial, defined by the New Oxford American English Dictionary as “a ceremony at which someone’s body is interred; a funeral” (Burial). I wish to discuss the idea of ceremony later, however, the concept of a body being interred is vital to this project. Each poem will be essentially born in its moment at its time, and a moment later it will be laid to rest. The normal process of writing, editing, revision, in some cases titling will be absent. Several words should come to mind here: abortion, death, separation, abandonment. At the moment the words take shape upon the page, I will bury them alive or dead. The words can never be changed. The poem itself will change as it decomposes, the page deteriorates, the matter falls apart, and the energy returns to the earth.

In the last concept the second element, earth, presents itself. The place from which man first reached and in the moments to come, the life to be led, he will return. I am a man of earth, one of dirt, with my hand I will move my pen across the page, I will dig the hole, I will place the page, and I will cover the page with dirt. The element is one of totality, beginning and ending, one moment in which creation and destruction will dance in tandem. I will reach from the earth to create my poem and then return those words to the origin.

In that word, origin, the third element, and for me, the most important comes to fruition. With each poem I will be using the symbol set of the English language. There was a day when I grunted, and you wrote it down with symbols, and from there we have developed those symbols into something I suppose could be described as elegant. The act of a word is to create communication. But, in a world of nuance and denotation, the very act becomes convoluted and distorted. The language becomes more than simple communication or relation and can be one of confusion, where the words themselves are void of the original meaning to a point where they become dangerous. So in my process I wish to discover, meditate upon, the idea of communicating the sound, the feel, the atmosphere of the moment I will be experiencing.

A final overall theme behind this work, mentioned earlier, is that of ceremony. The elements of this project, the mediation and the writing, the digging, and the burial itself are all contained within the concept of ritual. Now, I do not intend to write facing east, pray to the Judeo-Christian God (there will be no act of housel), I’m not looking for Brahma and Shiva, and I’m not trying to tap into my Druid ancestry and bring back Danu. In other words, the work is again one of the earth. I am writing as myself experiencing the process, the ritual, void of traditional prayer, though the basic concept is unavoidable.

I hope you find interest in this project, and feel free to comment, disagree, or discuss. Given the nature of the trip, I may not always be able to post the buried poem of the day, but I will as soon as I can gain access. I thank you all for at least taking the time to read this. I would like to also acknowledge Holly Simonsen, whose work Salt Flat: Bending Over Back Words, helped inform my thoughts on this project taking it from concept into being. If she performs the project again, or you can experience any of the work I strongly encourage you to do so: Here is a small link explaining some of the work she has done mailman.xmission.com/lurker/message/20090914.013150.99619018.en.html Again, thank you and I hope to see and hear from you further on down the path.

-I.K. Bodkin