B U C K D O W N S
______________________________________________IN MEMORY D. THOMPSON
"In Memory D Thompson" is a series composed of rubbings taken from headstones in Congressional Cemetery, Washington D.C. Each sequence was created by starting from a random point in the cemetery and proceeding, to discover each next word as the site and my ability to perceive it would disclose. It is a kind of erasure operating in reverse upon a text dominated by the names of the dead, pointing to some practical geomancy in which the materials on the earth are always only waiting to be activated.
The book is named for David E. Thompson (1939-1996), a.k.a. Davi Det Hompson, whose works in typography, sculpture, performance, etc., alone or with many collaborators, continue to remind me that the prevailing conditions of the area are always compelling reasons to work, and that living there an adequate principle to organize the results.
An exhibition of these poems just closed at the DC Arts Center.
[ page 1 of 17 ]