Move in Silence

"In Move in Silence, Blake Edward Hamilton tells us, "You can locate yourself / in cataclysm; let it collapse." And in the surreal absurdity of today's-which is to say history's-landscape, with viruses and fascist regimes wrapping their fingers around our collective throats, these are sound instructions, but not ones executed easily. As this book echoes, many crave the collapse of the old ways, while also fearing what their absence would mean. In this collection, Hamilton situates himself in that tension, of cataclysm/collapse, of nature/technology, of body/sexuality, of creating silence/being silenced, and observes with meditative precision. By doing so, we are able to quiet the noise and listen to the messages "histories ground into hard living" give to each of us: in our identities, in our interactions with nature, in how we treat one another. This book gently slices each of the senses, asking us to pay attention, to experience the day-to-day in every cell, and to be honest with what we discover there. And this is where the love lies. Because though Hamilton is a keen observer, his meditations are not sterile or cold. The care put into every detail and interaction-every raindrop on a locked car roof, every "flat-line [mouth] beaten into skin"-even when speaking about trauma or violence, reflects the deeply emotional, irrevocable, and complex condition of humanity. That, despite our sometimes harmful perceptions of one another, we all have things we love and fear within ourselves. I can think of no better time than now to sit with this fact, or this radiantly honest book."

-- Shawnie Hamer, author of the stove is off at home (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018) and Founder of collective.aporia.