ON THE CUTTING EDGE: 4 – What was Said at the Reunion of Deathbed Images – Marc Zegans on Rich Ferguson

By Sarah Tremlett | May 16, 2025 at 4:00 pm

Editor SARAH TREMLETT introduces On the Cutting Edge: 4

Over twenty years ago, in 2004 or 2005,  I began thinking of the screen in terms of a philosophical space. I began by looking at language itself and the letter, and how, by making it appear and disappear, something larger in terms of philosophy of language, of Being and Time, was also happening. I was also looking at materiality and feminist philosophers who were examining the essentially hierarchical, dualist, androcentric nature of philosophy since the ancient Greeks. Here we encounter  such concepts as Word over Matter (or Mind over Body) Male over Female and what has now become a major disaster, the diremption of nature from culture.  Feminist thinkers in the 1990s could see that philosophy needed to be connected to existence on a vital and essential level. To paraphrase myself in a really probing interview by Tereza Stehlikova  of Tangible Territory[i] :

‘… see the work of Somer Brodribb Nothing Mat(t)ers: a feminist critique of postmodernism (1988), Carol Bigwood Earth Muse (1993), and Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science (1983) by Sandra Harding and Merrill B Hintikka [ii]who put the whole Western system in context.  [This is not to say you have to be a feminist, but it happens that feminist women thinkers, from varying positions of inclusion and exclusion, are able to both view and relate with eloquence and clarity the issues at stake.] At the same time, women artists (second-wave feminists) were similarly dealing with real world issues, bringing art back to a serious connective marriage between place, body, subjectivity, psychology, abuse of power, etc. through text, image and voice. You can move from Nancy Spero, through Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer to Tracey Emin and some aspects of Fiona Banner etc. etc. to the opening up of othered voices from ethnically diverse and LGBTQIA+ and non-binary voices in the last ten years.’

In what I termed in my research ‘matternal’ philosophy, I was exploring a non-dualist aesthetic (word/matter) whilst also noting that this was not a gendered absolute, but a way of being, where the other is not othered. Equally, on a broader level, where one place or species is not exploited to man’s (financial) profit.

Imagine at the time, we were (and for some maybe still are) floundering in the post, postmodernist ‘Death of the Author’. I have always viewed this as a cultural indulgence,  useless for those who have never had a cultural voice (women at the forefront of the queue then). In a world in crisis we need to hear real voices and see Real Values at work and connective aesthetics[iii] that can feed into and expand on them to maybe help prevent the escalating path to a final loss of existence. And here FINAL means FINAL. It is also true we have progressed in these last twenty years where many organisations, often against the odds, have made wonderful strides in ecological conservation and preservation. However, we have arrived at a place where the most influential country in the world is headed up and symbolized by a cartoon character (following on from Boris Johnson, our own cartoon character in the UK) who uses social media to make decisions and creates fear and upheaval. What is far worse is that there is a sort of tacit agreement that these men are ‘in it to make money for themselves’ whether through Brexit, oil, development or arms, or whatever scheme Trump trumps up. This is at a time when values are literally life and death for some species. Are these the people we want as leaders to a secure future? How did this happen and what can we do?

Philosophy, embedded in writing and the word itself (and outmoded historic reference) needs to change and connect with the real world in the face of potential collective ending. Philosophy needs to think of ways of existence that take into account custodianship of the planet. A rewilded garden is connective philosophy in action … I have given many presentations on the subject of philosophy, the voice and identity in poetry films (see SarahTremlett.com) and my projects always concern philosophical change, connective aesthetics and inclusion, such as the bilingual, animal rights-centred Frame to Frames book.

Poetry films largely are a wonderful species, in that they do not hide their feelings, but reveal to an audience a particular point of view, or imagination. They are not obliquely opaque and conceptual to the degree of much video art. So, in watching poetry films whether we are artists or the man in the street, we are able to be drawn into a narrative and maybe entertained or enthralled. However, for some of us, there are deeper questions that a poetry film can throw up. In my family history project TREE, where for over 25 years I have been discovering my ancestry, I continually mull over my inner connection to, and similarity with voices and attitudes embedded in my DNA. So, for this reason, as well as all of the above, I am particularly pleased to introduce the latest essay from Marc Zegans.

In On the Cutting Edge: 4 this month Marc examines one particular poetry film – What was Said at the Reunion of Deathbed Wishes

by American spoken word poet Rich Ferguson, directed by Mark Wilkinson (both of whom have been judges for the earlier Liberated Words festivals in the past). In reading this essay (entitled What was Said at the Reunion of Deathbed Images) I am particularly struck as to how the film has expanded in my mind, in terms of what perhaps might seem really obvious – the essential nature of existence, of life and death. Without asking too much of the reader we are now, for the first time in history, requested on a daily basis to think about the finality of existence. The film then seems to generate highly relevant questions: what happens at the point of departing … where do we and our voices go, etc. etc. Whether Rich intended this or not, the concept of our ‘last wishes or thoughts’ has provided Marc with an opening into philosophical conjecture that is seamlessly married into the construction of this masterful poetry film.

Marc begins by drawing in Enzo Minarelli’s ‘polypoetry’ manifesto[iv], and the role of polypoiesis in the film:  ‘Though Enzo Minarelli’s foundational manifesto restricted polypoetry to live shows employing theatrical elements including dance, music, imagery, and technical intervention, the primacy polypoetry accords to sound and its notion that a “polypoet” inserts oneself as “critic, translator, curator, and journalist, into a lively network of artists and promoters,” jibe well with Ferguson’s approach to his craft.’

We are taken on a journey where aspects of the film and its place in relation to the role of the protagonist unfolds, alongside how we might think of images – whether shared or not, and the (I can only say ‘spiritual’) meaning of transmission and reunion; ‘the litany of deathbed wishes unfolds as a fantasia of desires.’

After all, as Marc says, here we are dealing with the big issues and they are being transmitted and arriving through analysis as philosophy – what is a wish? What is a deathbed image? Who is involved? Is there a reunion? How does Rich navigate the role of protagonist etc. I wonder if Rich himself has considered this? Here we are thinking about what is really being said through poetry and film. Whilst we see feature films every day that display death and killing, there is something very powerful about a film that sensitively asks us to face mortality at a very direct and confronting level.

Please watch the poetry film before (and then again after) you read this thought-provoking essay, and let us know your thoughts. The comments box is open as always and we appreciate valuable contributions to continue the discussion …

CLICK HERE – ON THE CUTTING EDGE: 4

[i] ‘The Poetics of Poetry Film’ interview by Dr Tereza Stehlikova
Tangible Territory Journal, ISSUE 4 September 2022

[ii] Somer Brodribb Nothing Mat(t)ers: a feminist critique of postmodernism, USA: New York University Press, 1988.

Carol Bigwood Earth Muse: Feminism, Nature and Art, USA: Temple University Press, 1993.

Sandra Harding & Merrill B. Hintikka (eds) Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Netherlands: Springer Dordrecht, 1983.

[iii] Gablik, S., (1992), ‘Connective Aesthetics, American Art, Vol. 6, No. 2, Spring 1992,  Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1086/424147

[iv]Polypoetry 30 Years 1987-2017, Enzo Minarelli, Frederico Fernandez, eds., p.9, Eduel International, 2018.

Posted on May 16, 2025 at 4:00 pm | Last modified on August 13, 2025 at 7:48 pm