POETRY INVITE TO WRITE 2-12-24

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Thu, 02/15/2024 - 10:08am

ARASAllison

Here is the image for this month's invite to write:

Our symbol for this month is grave.

From the Pyramids to the Terra Cotta Army to Graceland, the gravesite or tomb attempts to take our life and project it far into the future. These gestures annouce our existence, our wealth, our power, and our accomplishment. They are menat to be objects that may at times provide some sort of location for the dead not just literally but spiritually. This practice relates to cultures such as Christians, the Illinois, and others whose relationship to the idea of death approximately saw the soul as vacating a body that had been its home and physical representation for its next journey. The body interred remains a symbol of that soul's existence, requiring materials either for the afterlife or for reflection of their piousness. Other cultures such as the Egyptians, believed in the need to preserve the body for the afterlife. Religions such as Hinduism view death as a return to a whole that existed before and will continue to exist, the body itself is of no great import as it too will return to physical world, so physical marking of the dead takes less precedence. Nevertheless, Hindus have spaces called Smashana, which are devoted to performing last rites and are believed to be haunted by ghosts and spirits.

The gravestone is the only monument permitted to many people with a lack of resources or prominence and its financial expense is often prohibitive. While the commissioning of the professionally carved gravestone has been more accessible than it was for most than it was before the 20th century, we see in cemeteries across the world that the hierarchies of class and identity are left for eternity as one contemplates the size and design of these markers. What is lost in this market-dominated relationship to the ancient practice of tomb building is that the gravestone is not a way of showing your individual exceptionalism, but instead shows your connection to your community buried all around you and the history that you partook in.

Think about your relationship to burial, your wishes (if you have them) about how you would want to be represented for eternity, and how you feel about graveyards. Do you think these places are morbid? Interesting? Peaceful?

Happy writing!