Poetry Expo 25
/ 4 February 2025
The trauma as a mental crack/The identity of Kintsugi
Poetry Expo 25
An attempt to soften the cracks. Body-soul.
This is an admission that can determine identity.
Some subjects have a whole identity (family, environment) while others have a fragmented one (psychiatric severe cases). The Kintsugi identity recognizes the crack and surrounds it with precious material (usually gold) to form a cohesive fabric of the entire porcelain reality. Up there embroideries can beautify, reconstruct and retell the story of the subject on a more solid basis. Image Representation: Kintsugi (or Kintsukuroi) means "gold repair" and is the centuries-old Japanese art of taking damaged ceramics and repairing them with gold, silver or platinum. The gold stitching, rather than hiding the cracks and missing pieces, accentuates them.
The complexity of the construction makes repair difficult or easy, but never impossible.
Each poem is both a crack and a covering of it.
We cannot live without taking care of our individuality. The individual in modern capitalist society becomes part as expendable.
Τhe individuals works in order to to be able to consume, and as much as he consumes, he works. Human beings need time to have quality of life. However, the modern way of life devalues the concept of time, using it only as an excuse for more work. The spirit is either undervalued as unnecessary or overvalued as a luxury item.
So, cracks are created in the spirit, in the soul and sometimes in the flesh. In order not to open further, so that the subject-man does not break and dissolve, the cracks are covered with "golden" words. This is the context in which the present project moves. The poems as a narrative that tries to cover the trauma. He doesn't want to make it disappear. On the contrary, it upgrades it, beautifying it.
The project is part of the subtheme Healing Narratives - Poetry, Mental Health and Collective Trauma.
Author
Amgeliki
Angeliki Dimouli is from Athens, Greece. She studied literature at the University of Athens and at the Sorbonne University in Paris where she has also lived. In Paris, she became familiar with the French poetry and civilization and there she wrote her first poetry collection named ERDYLON inspired by the name and the principles of OULIPO, a well-known poetry movement. Actually she lives in Athens and she teaches Greek language. In the meantime, she writes her own column in an electronic poetry magazine where she translates French poetry. She publishes poems and essays in literary magazines, as well. Her second poetry collection named THE SUBLIGHTS will appear in the end of 2014. Her poems are translated in several languages like Spanish, French, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Basque, Arab and Maltese. Her third poetry collection, THENAR, describes the experience of maternity. The fourth collection, SILK WIRE MESH, it has existential content in relation to contemporary postmodern society.
