Blog 8: Haikus and Covens

This week we took a look at the book Art as Social Practice: Technologies for Change, the Coven Intelligence Program, and one breath poems. I first want to take a look at the one breath poems, because I had an interesting experience with how I wanted to approach the one breath poem. My first initial thought was to make a haiku, which, according to the Academy of American Poets, is a Japanese style of poetry that comes in the form of three lines with the syllable structure of 5/7/5. It was due to the short nature of the haiku that I believed it would work as a one breath poem. Additionally, according to Read Poetry, haikus are also meant to be minimalist and powerful. I feel like this also works with the poem meant to be recited in one breath. The breath is one of the most important and powerful things in life, and how we breathe and utilize our breath can drastically affect our lives and our performance. According to James Nestor in his book Breath, he explains that athletes that have utilized slow breathing techniques while running have set personal and world records in their races. When thinking about the haikus and one breath poems, I also reflected on my class I took Fall 2020 that was about Poetry and Protest that was taught by Professor Christopher Soto. I remember how Professor Soto explained that different forms of poetry can be manipulated and utilized to galvanize people and movements into performative action. I think this fits in well with the one breath poem because it feels like something that could be used as a rallying cry for a movement. The fact that it is so short and easy to say makes it ideal as a rallying cry for a protest movement, as it would be easy to remember and straight to the point. Especially if it's in haiku, where every word and syllable is hyper significant, protest movements could create a powerful and timeless mantra. 

Speaking of protests and movements, the Coven Intelligence Program also uses its platform to inspire social change and activism and integrates technology to do so. According to YBCA.org, the Coven Intelligence Program “is a revolutionary, anti-capitalist alliance among witches, plants, and machines”. This website allows for people to cast and concoct spells that allow persecuted groups, whether that be witches, other marginalized groups, or even plants to fuse together their experiences of being downtrodden and oppressed and find ways to come together and fight against it. According to beforebefore.net, the Coven Intelligence Program calls out the “the destruction of multi-species commons, and the rise of racial, heteropatriarchal capitalism” in order to raise awareness of this decimation as well as unite the oppressed against in to spark change. Art and technology, especially when they combine language into their workings, can be powerful mechanisms for social change. Language and speech is the most powerful performative action we can take as people, and art and tech can help us utilize our voices. 

Source: YBCA.org

Work Cited

“AFTER LIFE: Coven Intelligence Program.” YBCA, https://ybca.org/after-life-coven-intelligence-program/. Accessed 22 May 2022.

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. James Nestor

Coven Intelligence Program: Revolutionary Ecologies of Work Between Plants and Machines. https://beforebefore.net/apriori-revolutionary-ecology-of-work-between-plants-and-machines/. Accessed 22 May 2022.

“Poetry with a Purpose: Why the Haiku?” Read Poetry, 20 Apr. 2021, https://www.readpoetry.com/why-the-haiku/.

Poets, Academy of American. Haiku | Academy of American Poets. https://poets.org/glossary/haiku. Accessed 22 May 2022.