Aby Kaupang Poetry: Selections from 13 Words

In the month following Donald Trump’s election to President of the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center received over 1,094 reports of hate crimes. A burst of hate. The following poems were written with the assistance of the Hate on Display database through the Anti-defamation League’s website and in-part for the Holter Museum of Art’s traveling exhibition, Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate, which travelled through my hometown of Fort Collins in January 2017. The exhibit was birthed in 2004 when copies of the Creativity Movement’s—a virulent white supremacist group—“bibles” landed in the hands of artists who were asked to “respond to, integrate or transform” the racist books in provocative ways. The following poems seek to simultaneously educate readers on frequent hate symbols and acronyms which now pollute the world around us, as well as to transform the language of hate.

Parentheses

reshape nest

a serpent she tears a sprees then   ashes    ten per rape he’s sent
reap he nests    pears he sent              reap she nets   era she spent
eras he spent
heaps resent       hearse spent

paths serene     neat spheres

shapes enter

aspens there anthers seep  panthers see

 

asters

 

Multiple parentheses—or the “echo,”—is a typographical practice used by anti-Semites online to denote the being or thought inside the parentheses is Jewish. Ex:(((Natalie Weiss))). The use of the echo was relatively uncommon, but in the spring of 2016, anti-Semites began using the echo when responding to or retweeting Jewish journalists, or journalists thought to be Jewish, which brought more attention to the practice. Anti-Semites began using inverted parentheses themselves, on their own screen names, to indicate that they were not Jewish or were anti-Jewish.

RAHOWA
RaHoWa

a war oh!

a war ho!
a raw oh

a rah ow

a hora

aha!

row

 

RAHOWA is an acronym for “Racial Holy War,” a term created by the Creativity Movement, a white supremacist pseudo-religion, as a rallying cry for the white supremacist cause. Over the years, its usage spread beyond Creativity Movement members into the broader white supremacist movement.

Bound for Glory

Long Body Furor       Born Dourly Fog        Furor Bony Gold

 

Aby Kaupang is the author of, most recently, NOS, disorder not otherwise specified (with Matthew Cooperman, Futurepoem, 2017), Disorder 299.00 (with Matthew Cooperman, Essay Press, 2016), Little “g” God Grows Tired of Me (SpringGun, 2013), Absence is Such a Transparent House (Tebot Bach, 2011), and Scenic Fences | Houses Innumerable (Scantily Clad Press, 2008). She holds master’s degrees in both Creative Writing and Occupational Therapy and lives in Fort Collins where she served as the Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. More information can be found at abykaupang.com.

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