Since the beginning of the year, «dears, write» has been gathering in the Dada Library at Cabaret Voltaire every last Wednesday of the month.*

Together we read, we listen, we write, we share texts and time. Hands move in cadence, towards and away from each other, texts are woven, words spread on the page, and a fluid and open community emerges from the echoes of pens on paper.

We come from various horizons and backgrounds, speak different languages, arrive after a day at the office, at school or at home, and share presence and words in an evening of writing in the company of others.

The constellation of people varies, some faces and names become familiar, others come and go. One person keeps returning to the table by the window, another once brought a big box of chocolate for everyone…

The focus is on the process and the multiple ways of relating that it involves, rather than on the results. However, along the way, some texts do emerge. We are happy to share a collection of them with the readers of the dadablog – enjoy!

The full names of the writers are listed at the end – thanks to all of you for sharing!

_______

1.

We live in different countries that feel like they’re on different planets.

2.

it was the thick eyebrows that gave me away
when ordering fries at the kebab place
Schlomo, bscheino, mashallah, suryeyto hat
a sense of shame, spine to shoulders
if my grandmother knew I’d be engaged
it’s not excitement nor joy but the fear and need to stay with the same
to protect to prevent to ensure
a future for a culture that hasn’t made it into the classical history books
yet
but most importantly I have
a body to bear children and I should make haste
sadly, survival has been taught to happen only in one way

3.

tomatos and pluto

why does everything have to be something.
why does something can not just be.
without being something. just be.

why does everything need to fit – clothes, me – into a system.
why does everything need a label, to be, something.
people are discussing whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.
they are discussing if the planet pluto is a planet, or not.

why?

why a tomato can not just be a tomato and planet pluto a planet.

even art needs to be anything or something, or everything needs to be art.
why art can not just be art, and anything anything, and everything everything.

why do i have to fit somewhere?

why cannot i just be a human.
why cannot i just be.

being. without being anything or something or even everything to somebody.

it should be all about being, not being something, someone or someone's.

being should be enough.

being a tomato should be enough.
being planet pluto should be enough.
being me should be enough.

4.

When days felt never-ending and life void of any problems.

5.

Yesterday

Easy with the curving silver line.
Easy with the tide marks
and winding down of disappearing words.

Bottled sand returns as memory.
The memory is how you feel right now.
This mood, however boring.

Dry it.
Give it to the pepper shaker and
Sriracha mayo bottle pantry relics.

Other sights and sounds join the jam.
Pouring white noise, a swoosh of kosher salt.
And IN they go.

IN with the curving line.
IN the boiling water. IN too deep.
Precipitation and steam.

«Yesterday» intruding from the other room (made to sound like any other cover band.)
The End.

6.

– Her homeland still hunted her. (She made her new room look like her old room)

– She was easy to impress because she wasn’t impressed by herself too much.

– He was a charming young man that always left her. Mainly confused.
One day she turned confusion into the conclusion that she must leave him.

– I can’t tell which one feels more violent: Your absence or your presence. (I bleed in them both)

– With you by my side, I scream for peace. Without you by my side, I scream for you.

– I wrote you a note and put it in your locker. It was not a love letter by its content but by its gesture.

– What is the point of writing if none of my words can make you stay?
I will practice until I can make you love me.

7.
... we close our eyes to concentrate on the sound – you know it is easier that way to imagine – draw inner pictures of sounds and shapes, sounds and shapes like a painter moving his brush over a piece of linen or paper moved by sudden thoughts and emotions chaotic in their composition. The crackling sound has vanished now and the drums take over – tam, tam, tatatam, taratataratatam, taratam, taratam, tratatatatatam – louder we shout.

8.

To speak with authority on each other’s nakedness
To sing in unison of your brother’s grievances

9.

To fall into an exhausted abyss of what is supposed to be endless bliss.

10.

bleiben, nicht gehen, nicht bleiben, gehen

sie ist nur vorübergehend, nicht bleibend, gehend
nach ihr kommt, nach ihrem gehen, kommt etwas,
sie bleibt nicht, sie geht

was wenn nicht
sie nicht geht, bleibt,
obschon sie nicht bleiben, aber gehen sollte
sie bleibt, ohne je zu gehen,
ohne, dass die zeit geht,
sie vergeht, sie vorübergeht

einfach bleibt,
einfach da ist,
nicht geht, die zeit nicht vergeht

was ist wenn,
sie bleibt, für immer
wenn sie nicht geht, nie

warum bleibt sie, geht nicht, die trauer
geht nicht vorüber, vergeht nicht,
bleibt, ohne dass die zeit vergeht

11.

My belongings never travel in isolation; they feel entitled to exist in their power. Across the harbor, they disappear as everything plunges inwards, only to resurface outwards. As You Say: You can carry your sadness along with your happiness, as long as we are welcoming momentum in your life. My Life becomes a project job.

12.

He takes you for a Samaritan
I’ll take you for a train of thought:
Have you ever wondered?
Have you ever followed?
Have you ever pondered?
Have you ever swallowed?

13.

There she is, chasing her shadow like a tail-hooked dog, on the boundary of something beautiful. There are eyes in the leaves and they weep their dew on her socks and bare ankles. The gap of light in the distance, stretching through the clouds, finally reaches her face. This warmth. She spreads her hands out in front of her in a gesture she will use, later in her life, to indicate when something is good.

14.

Schlusswort

Volle Seiten, viele Zeilen, es sind Sätze, jetzt ein Buch.
Meistens herrscht Ordnung. Davor, danach – ein Punkt.
Nichts Halbes, nichts Ganzes, es ist ein Fluch,
und du schreibst dir die Finger wund,
dabei ist nichts konstruiert,
du sprichst laut und akzentuiert.

Authors:
1., 4., 9. Jill Blocker, 31.1.24, 29.2.24, 24.4.24
2. Jo Bahdo, excerpt of a poem in progress, 31.1.24
3. Mërgim, 31.1.24
5. Marco Antonini, 29.2.24
6. Lara Alina Hofer, 29.2.24
7. Ursula Tschirren, 27.3.24
8. Kevin Klein, 27.3.24
10. Mërgim, 27.3.24
11. Sofia Hidalgo, 27.3.24
12. Kevin Klein, 22.5.24
13. Samantha Toh, 22.5.24
14. Ninel, 22.5.24

*

«dears, write» takes place every last Wednesday of the month in the Dada Library, from January to May 2024. The event series is initiated by DEARS – magazine for transversal writing practices at the crossroads of poetry, art and experimental writing, and intends to explore sustainable ways of relating through writing.
The meetings unfold in three sequences: we first listen to texts selected in advance, then dive into writing, and finally read aloud passages of the texts just written in a spontaneous collective reading. Participants are invited to propose texts by other authors to be read aloud in the first sequence. Everyone is welcome to join.

At the first meeting (31.01.2024), we read passages from Certain Magical Acts by Alice Notley, On Freedom by Maggie Nelson, and The Nutmeg’s Curse by Amitav Ghosh.
At the second meeting (29.02.2024), we read passages from Space Crone by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, and Real Estate by Deborah Levy.
At the third meeting (27.03.2024), we read passages from Rainer Maria Rilke's Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (in German), Writing as a Nomadic Subject by Rosi Braidotti and Citizen by Claudia Rankine (in English).
At the fourth meeting (24.04.2024), we read and listened to selected poems by Emmy Hennings, Eileen Myles, and passages from The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (proposed and read by Swati Prasad).
At the fifth meeting (22.05.2024), we read and listened to passages from Poetics of Relation by Edouard Glissant, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, «Woolf Darkness: Embracing the Inexplicable» by Rebecca Solnit, and «For The Concerned», a poem by Charles Bukowski (proposed and read by Kevin Klein).