Poetry and the document
A bonus post in collaboration with AfterWords Literary Festival
Archives feel haunted, to me. Mostly by what isn’t said.
Some of the most monumentally human experiences of my life are reflected in a legal document, or heralded in business writing. Certificate of a live birth — even the name, pregnant with the meaning of what it excludes. Certificate of marriage. Certificat de décès.
A lease, dotted with the clauses we…