VERBAL PRIVILEGE.

That's the title of a promising new blog whose proposed ambit is "language, literature, politics, poetry, cinema, music, food, art, heterotopia"; it takes its name from an Adrienne Rich poem, "North American Time," whose second section I find as memorable as does Elizabeth (the blogger):

II
Everything we write
will be used against us
or against those we love.
These are the terms,
take them or leave them.
Poetry never stood a chance
of standing outside history.
One line typed twenty years ago
can be blazed on a wall in spraypaint
to glorify art as detachment
or torture of those we
did not love but also
did not want to kill

We move but our words stand
become responsible
for more than we intended

and this is verbal privilege.

You can read the whole thing here, and if you happen to like lentil soup she has what looks to be a tasty Turkish version.

Posted by languagehat at August 3, 2005 01:59 PM