Poem: Acts of Barbarity and Vandalism

Acts of Barbarity and Vandalism is a chapbook I published with Jonathan Ball's Martian Press in 2006. It is a series of fragments of fragments (or fragmented fragments) composed on the subject of the traces and remainders of genocide, the thoughts and words that gather after. To give you an idea of what I mean, here are two examples:

I. First Remarks

There is nothing innocuous left. The little pleasures, expressions of life that seemed exempt from the responsibility of thought, not only have an element of defiant silliness, of callous refusal to see, but directly serve their diametrical opposite. Even the blossoming tree lies the moment its bloom is seen without the shadow of terror; even the innocent 'How lovely!' becomes an excuse for an existence outrageously unlovely, and there is no longer beauty or consolation except in the gaze falling on horror, withstanding it, and in unalleviated consciousness of negativity holding fast to the possibility of what is better.

Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia


V. Foundation

It is not the mass that invents and not
the majority that organizes or thinks,
but in all things only and always the
individual man, the person.

Are there still treacherous secret
elements buried inside the Party, or are
they gone? According to our
observations over the past ten years
it's clear that they're not gone at all.
This is because they have been
entering the Party continously. Some
are truly committed; some waver in
their loyalties. Enemis can easily seep
in. They remain--perhaps only one
person, or two people. They remain.

Adolph Hitler, Mein Kempf,
and Pol Pot, speech

The title of the book is taken from the presentation Raphael Lemkin had intended to give at a League of Nations conference on international law. The paper, presented in his absence, proposed that the extermination of human groups should be considered an international crime. At the last moment, the Polish government had prevented Lemkin from attending the conference for fear he would embarrass the country with his controversial idea. It was 1933.

Jonathan Ball, with this origin in mind, bound the poems "conference-style" in black duotangs (40 with clear covers and 20 with opaque covers) and used Lemkin's proposal for the cover. You can read more about Jonathan and his good works here.

You can download a pdf version of Acts of Barbarity and Vandalism here.