we are all, some of we eating grapes
some of we and the land that was never ours while we were the land’s
sparrows are pecking at it eating
to push far what is with
juliana spahr
Note: We were tourists. There were long lines. My mother waited in them. I sat outside and took notes. In the park, someone was singing we are all in this world together. There were some grapes. Someone was feeding sparrows, making them perch on the thumb and eat out of the hand if they wanted any food. The sparrows preferred to eat on the ground. I was thinking about a story I had heard about a French grandfather who left early in my father's life, moved to Canada, and died by falling off a horse. I thought about the vines that grew in France, then came as cuttings to California, then went back to France after a blight. I thought about who owned what. And divisions. And songs sung in bars. And inaugural poems. I was just trying to figure out this day. I came home and used a translation machine to push my notes back and forth between French and English until a new sort of English came out, this poem. (The movements back and forth between French and English can be viewed by clicking on the word "French.")
Fifty copies of a chapbook version of We Are All . . . were made for Subpoetics, Self-Publish or Perish initiative in July of 1999 in Brooklyn, New York. These copies were numbered 1-50 and are distributed to Subpoetics members. And unknown amount of unnumbered copies were produced in Brooklyn and Honolulu during the years 1999 and 2000.