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A Tribute to the Poet Sean Bonney (1969-2019)

By mute, 22 November 2019
Image: Sean Bonney, by Sam Dolbear (with thanks): https://www.facebook.com/sean.bonney1

The poet Sean Bonney died last week in Berlin. He was an inspiration to all at Mute, a great friend, kindred spirit and supporter. He’ll be greatly missed. Over the years we had the pleasure and honor of publishing some of his works. Our deepest condolences to his family, loved ones and friends.

Below are works that have appeared in Mute.

 

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The Kidnap and Murder of David Cameron

By Sean Bonney, 2 April 2013

Short Blanqui version:

https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/kidnap-and-murder-david-cameron

In response to the massive and murderous raft of cuts being introduced by the State and local authorities (ConDem AND New Labour - NOTE) this month, I'm reposting this poem from the great Sean Bonney. Words that begin to approximate to how so many people feel right now, I'm guessing.

 

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Image: Louis-Auguste Blanqui

From Eternity to Here

By Sean Bonney, 3 September 2013

Long Blanqui version

https://www.metamute.org/editorial/reviews/eternity-to-here

Responding to the publication of a new edition of communard Blanqui's elliptical cosmic work, Eternity by the Stars, Sean Bonney notes the conjunction of defeat, imprisonment, hell's eternity and its undoing.

 

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Image: Sean Bonney

Comets & Barricades: Insurrectionary Imagination in Exile

By Sean Bonney, 9 January 2014

https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/comets-barricades-insurrectionary-imagination-exile

Imagine history as an infernal kaleidoscopic system in which capital and its cops eternally return to shut down all possibilities of freedom. Could poetry constitute a way of writing that system a death sentence it can neither pronounce nor suppress? Poetry as the imaginative continuation and extension of insurrection, even in defeat? Sean Bonney enters Blanqui’s devastating vision of capital, cops and comets, Eternity by the Stars, written in the immediate aftermath of the Paris Commune, and elaborates a visionary conception of revolutionary poetics and the poetry of revolution.

 

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Antimatter

By Sean Bonney, 12 June 2019

https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/antimatter

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When you were scratching your name into the mirror another few hundred people died. I guess they exist outside the borderline of what you call ‘kindness’. Kindness which in your mouth has the consistency of raw sewage. When you laugh it sounds like boiling lice.