Cradle of Zoom | Erin Robinsong

May 18, 2022

Detail of Wet Dream book cover, Erin Robinsong, Brick Books, 2022

I listen to my reluctance, curious to see how far it goes

But you are an artist, the person said

A person with high hopes for art

I had high hopes for art too and felt that the motion 

Of art was first a kind of training 

To simply not be sick in the chaos

And not swallow the sick back down 

A physical training for withstanding evil

I found that I wanted to bite, to be soft, to ride & send messages

I seem to require these tensions

There’s nothing formless

But the terror of speaking on a zoom call 

Has a whole new motion new quease

We were being asked to accept this, to acclimate  

To a realm replacement merely

These imperfect momentums are empty 

The content is your art 

Not as objet but as your extreme training whereby you can make anything 

Strange, this is the least obvious one 

Jung said the body is the densest part of the unconscious 

My density started to float and dissolve after zooming 

The fast-moving money of aliveness strangest of all 

When I finally left my house  

I found that I wanted to hide, and that I actually could

In the axiology of plants and their care I mean weeds I mean 

I have 30 seconds left and must tell you my desk has an eye

It’s been here all along 

In the grain of the wood, I failed to mention 

How it cares for me, but now that we’re here I don’t want to omit 

The details the sorcery the plainness it takes 

For things to appear

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Erin Robinsong is a poet, interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and the author of Rag Cosmology (Book *hug Press, 2017), Liquidity (House House Press, 2020), and Wet Dream (Brick Books, 2022). A PhD student at Concordia University, Erin’s research-creation focuses on transcorporeal poetics. Originally from Cortes Island, Erin lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Canada.

The poem “Cradle of Zoom” is from the book Wet Dream, forthcoming on September 23, 2022, with Brick Books.