The Classic Guide to
Strategy
Sacha Archer
Writing is a category of the arts. A statement like that is
both meaningless and perfectly to the point. Such a statement is located in the
same tradition as the Zen koan, except, not being wise, I give it awkwardly,
with a balance of alcohol and pride.
If I do know what
writing is, I don’t want to forget. I want to use it as a reference when I
cannot remember where I am or what I am doing. Too often writing resembles
itself too self-assuredly, and as such is good for an anchor in an hour of
idiot bravery.
Use every possible means and material to perform the act of
writing and to arrive at the material conclusions that are bound to occur. But,
this is also a strategy of survival.
An advantageous fatigue has settled over me. I no longer
work to understand. Understanding is
the work pouring forth from the hands, feet, eyes, lips, tongue. This is not a
lucrative philosophy of the body. Nor is it masturbatory. But it is physical.
In fact, I have more faith in misunderstanding which sends
us on our way just as readily. To understand that which was never there, and
which, through misunderstanding, materializes—independent of the source, or
non-source. To attribute to another what is already yours. To thieve your own conception
from the shadow of a doubt, that human figure.
And it’s not there at all. That is the field I’m in.
Writing is a god or writing is job. Writing is a category
of the arts—when it is positioned so. Positioned so, writing is a category of
the arts. As such, it need not resemble the text as we know it. That’s not writing, that’s wringing the air
of its time. That’s not writing. That’s not writing, that’s surviving.
Sacha Archer is a
Canadian writer currently residing in Ontario. He was the recipient of the 2008
P.K. Page Irwin Prize for his poetry and visual art, and in 2010 he was chosen
to participate in the Elise Partridge Mentor Program. His work has appeared in
journals such as filling Station, ACTA Victoriana, h&, illiterature, NōD, and Experiment-O. His most recent chapbooks are Detour (Spacecraft Press, 2017), The Insistence of Momentum (The Blasted Tree, 2017), and Acceleration of the Arbitrary (Grey
Borders, 2017), and a new title is forthcoming from above/ground press. One of
his online manifestations is his blog at https://sachaarcher.wordpress.com/
