In our Craft Capsules series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 282.
Writing and reading are embodied. The most ancient forms of communication are vocal utterance and bodily expression. Sound in the mouth and lungs, breath made phonemes and meaning. Movement of the body in intentional response, with or without pattern, is dance. The body moves externally (dance) and internally (breath, diaphragm: song, words). In the vein of Yoko Ono’s “13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival,” I offer below an experimental choreography for poetry.
In the dance “Star Map,” there are two participants: one who moves and one who watches.
Process: Gaze into the sky for a stellar object that captures your rapture. It does not have to be the brightest, or any star you know. Once you have fixated on a single celestial object, endeavor to learn its name (numerous apps exist to assist), its attributes (luminosity, etc.), its history, associated narratives or mythologies, and alternate names and mythologies in different ancient stargazing cultures. Find the frequency between the star (its mythologies and physical qualities) and your own body. Groove in space. Find the vibe. This process can also be adapted for use with bodies of water (lake, river, ocean, pool, weir, etc.).
Inside the life of a star—its birth, its stellar existence, its eventual death—there are movements grand and cosmic, and also the smallest shifts and subtlest transformations. Some movements take place in a relative instant; others unfold across billions of years. But not as many billions of years as you might think.
“Star Map,” the poem you are writing / embodying, is a dance of indeterminate length.
Shining lights as drawings which told stories.
Proof it was we who flew through space.
That there was no fixity in heaven.
How to dance : a body in profound stillness.
Micromovements first until a pattern is found.
Possible soundtracks:
white noise from a radio or other source
an appliance (fridge, washing machine, dryer, engine) humming
Silver Sessions by Sonic Youth
AOS by Yoko Ono and the Ornette Colman Quartet
Ryoanji by John Cage (as performed by Joelle Leandre and Lê Quan Ninh)
The relationship of sound (and music) to silence is explored in these last three works. Silver Sessions is a remix of intentional amp feedback; AOS is an improvised piece that questions structure and composition; Ryoanji is John Cage’s evocation of a rock garden at a Zen temple in Kyoto. The synchronous arrhythmic beats of wood and metal percussion provide a destabilizing structure against which the fluidity of the instrumental line utters. In Leandre’s recording, it is double bass and (Leandre’s) voice; Cage composed additional versions for oboe, trombone, and various other instruments.
Choreographic notes for the one who moves:
Body holds great potential
Dynamic expression but in microtones
Imitate stellar time, aeon in an arm shifting
Great intention and focus. Gaze glacial but searching
There is a listening
Borders of the body recruited in choreography:
Fingers, elbow, ear. Heel. Knee.
Anterior lateral scapular edge, the levator scapulae.
Small rain down can rain
Is there a single flourish or sweep or swoop
Life of a star in only the smallest fraction of a moment of eternity
Pattern of movement may emerge
Discursive models for the one who watches:
Stellar choreography is an invocation of:
Cartography
Calligraphy
Quantum Physics
Sculpture
Mythology
Architecture
Psychophysiology
Pulmonology
Yogic Anatomy (Nadis, Chakras, Granthis, Bandhas)
The dance ends in silence. It may end in stillness or the lights may slowly fade on a moving dancer, no one sure when it ends or perhaps even what is happening. No indication of closure because no closure the body can know. Cosmic time.
The one who watches writes during movement and after.
The one who moves writes during movement and after.
Kazim Ali is a professor of comparative literature and literary arts at the University of California in San Diego, and the founding editor of Nightboat Books. His newest volume of poetry is The Man in 119 (Copper Canyon Press, 2026).
image credit: Jackson Hendry