When I ask my freshmen to read Sontag, it seems her ambiguity throws them
off. Or, perhaps the precision of her questions: What is a photograph anyway
and what does it do; what does it do now—now that we are feathered in
them? Perhaps images are not a covering but an invasion—we are pierced
with them. She knows but won’t tell us, if this bombardment feeds or poisons
us, is good or bad for us, and, despite my hunger for a simple value
judgment, I love being left with my own neediness—we argue about Sally
Mann’s family portraits then they click through to look at her pictures of
dead bodies, even though I warned them not to, even though I can’t stop
thinking about the brutal bravery of those photos. The way she feeds her
sorrow. I really want them to feel—this is the aim of the lesson—to feel the
truth in that line from Sontag’s diary: Art is a form of nourishment. She says,
nourishment—my whole tired body is tired. Their bodies have the shapes of
tired bodies. I spent days looking desperately for the images with the right
fears, precise doubts and hopes, and, occasionally, if not harmony—joy. I
want to nourish them so that I can see it myself, see them straighten and blink
their eyes clear, fed with seeing, raise their hands to the table top, then higher.
CHARLES MALONE works with writers in the community around Kent, OH through the Wick Poetry Center. He is the author of three collections of poetry, After an Eclipse of Moths (Moonstone Arts), Questions About Circulation (Driftwood Press), and Working Hypothesis (Finishing Line Press). Charles edited the anthologies “Light Enters the Grove: Exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park through Poetry” (Kent State University Press) and “A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park” (Wolverine Farm Publishing). He is also the founder and co-editor of Crayfish Mag at Furnace Run Press.
Hailed as “an author with a genuine flair for originality” by Midwest Book Review and “a loveable, engaging, original voice…” by Publishers Weekly, LIS ANNA-LANGSTON is the author of five novels, winner of 18 book awards, three-time Pushcart nominee, published extensively in literary journals and a Magna Cum Laude graduate.
