Poetry Clip: Jean-Michel Espitallier

HERE AND THERE
1. The world is all that is there.
2. The totality of the world is the totality of theres of the world minus one there that is here.
3. Here is the sum of all the theres minus all the theres minus one.
4. Seen from there, there will always be one there missing from the totality of theres of the world, and that missing there is here. So that one cannot conceive a universe comprised of there only. However, all that is not here does not exist.
5. From which it follows that all the theres which are at the same time not here do not exist here.
6. And thus the world does not exist. Save here.
7. 'Look over there and see if I am there' is an order difficult to follow.
8. All that is there never comes here, save if one should go there to look for it and remain there. 9. The value of here varies according to here. 'Doctor, I have a pain here' does not designate the same here as 'here in Europe', 'here in Europe' includes 'doctor, I have a pain here' if the pain and the doctor are both 'here in Europe.' It follows that 'doctor, I have a pain here' does not designate the same here as 'here in Europe' even if 'doctor, I have a pain here' should happen to be 'here in Europe.' There exists therefore a relation of inclusion between many heres, since here is always included in a here larger than it.
10. From which it will be deduced that each here consists of an infinity of heres all nested in each other like matryoshka dolls, even in Europe.
11. This relation is not reciprocal ('here in Europe' includes 'I have a pain here,' but 'I have a pain here' does not include 'here in Europe').
12. If he who has 'a pain here' telephones from China for a doctor who is 'in Europe,' here the relation between the two is a relation known as space-shifted telediagnostical, since 'I have a pain here' is included in 'here in Europe' and the doctor who happens to be 'here in Europe' must diagnose the 'pain here' that is not 'here in Europe.'
13. Two heres = 1 there who is not here + 1 here who is not there (except there).
14. If for here there = there, for there here = there; but for there, there does not necessarily equal here.
15. The thousands of theres which are there for other people over there do not exist for these other people over there who do not exist for here.
16. The totality of other people over there corresponds to the totality of the potentials of here.
17. One there never equals another, even if for here two distinct theres are indistinctly there.
18. Each there is the there of all the other theres at once.
19. The frontier between here and there is not very neat.
20. The statement 'I am there' is a logical impossibility, similar for example to the statements 'He is on his period. That noise feels funny. The first time I went to New York it was in California. We have three only sons. I weigh 1.81 metres. I count them on the fingers of my hip. My mother is still a virgin. Open 24 hours until 10.30. I assassinated my sister's only brother. 97% of the persons interrogated were alive. New timetables for the third half of the year. The Andrews twins are ten months older than each other. I have given the go-ahead for the big swim across America. He won the Tour de France of the Bouches-du-Rhône. The Austrian navy, it claims that you are shit. In Rotterdam, only the Dutch poets are not international.'
21. Just one here for two there is a logical aberration. Or it is the war.

© 2008, Jean-Michel Espitallier
Publisher: First published on PIW, 2008

© Translation: 2008, Keston Sutherland


Poetry Clip made by BEELDRECENTIES and Poetry International Web.
Camera by Marieke van der Lippe and Arthur Bueno.
Interviews by Michele Hutchison.
Filmed on location at the main stage of the Rotterdamse City Theatre, during the 39th Poetry International Festival, 2008.

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