Passages from “Locals” & “Attention’s Loop”
Speculative Friction
by Claire Bateman
GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—6/13/11
Another selection from Locals, a recently completed fiction collection:
“In this realm, everyone checks the atmospheric indices before each decision. In ordinary times, when the free-will quotient is high, citizens hurry to sell stocks, purchase property, propose or accept marriage, conceive children, make career shifts, create new public policy, etc.—in fact, most of this realm’s innovations are sparked during these times when the effects of emotional and intellectual conditioning are alleviated. When the free-will quotient is low, squads of troopers swathed in pressurized and oxygenated gear patrol the streets to keep the populace at home.
“Inherent in the realm’s constitution, however, is a decidedly conservative bias; therefore, when the realm has
been particularly prosperous and happy, the squads are sent out on the highest free-will days to prevent the instigation of new inventions or policies. And when things are going very poorly, a high free-will day means mandatory work for all; the squad proceeds from house to house, making sure that no one is lounging around in a bathrobe instead of engaging in some activity that might trigger a new idea—who knows but that even some street sweeper pushing a mop downtown might suddenly be struck with the notion that fixes everything?”
First published in “Blackbird”
“’Can this be physically done?’ is the question that launches my actions in the studio. If I invent a good enough problem, this problem, together with the laws of nature it will bring me up against, plus a deadline, will save me from the poverty of my intent.”
From Attention’s Loop, by Elizabeth King.
Claire Bateman
Claire Bateman’s books include Scape (New Issues Poetry & Prose); Locals (Serving House Books), The Bicycle Slow Race (Wesleyan University Press), Friction (Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize), At The Funeral Of The Ether (Ninety-Six Press, Furman University), Clumsy (New Issues Poetry & Prose), Leap (New Issues), and Coronology (Etruscan Press). She has been awarded Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Surdna Foundation, as well as two Pushcart Prizes and the New Millennium Writings 40th Anniversary Poetry Prize. She has taught at Clemson University, the Greenville Fine Arts Center, and various workshops and conferences such as Bread Loaf and Mount Holyoke. She lives in Greenville, South Carolina. (Please see Bateman’s amazon.com Author’s Page for links to all her publications, and go here for further information about the poet and her work.) (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)