‘This Page Is an Occupied Territory’

Written by poet, performer, cultural critic Adeena Karasick, and visualized by vis lit pioneer Warren Lehrer, ‘This Page Is an Occupied Territory’ was composed in reaction to the ongoing occupation, war, slaughter in Gaza/Israel, and approaches the medium of language and the page itself as an occupied territory. ‘This Page’ investigates how, in many ways, nothing is pre and everything has always already been ‘occupied’. In much the same light, translation can be seen as a form of occupation, whereby one language layered onto the body of another can sometimes be an act of war. The word ‘war’, as both an English noun and a verb meaning ‘conflict’ and a German adjective (wàhr) meaning what is ‘true, real, genuine’, literally places ‘war’ at war with itself. To wit, ‘wà[h]r’ not only ‘occupies’ the homography between the ear and the eye; the babelism at play between speech and writing – but born in differance, madness and effacement, the notion of ‘occupation’ points to how what is ‘true’ is always in conflict, and thus graphically manifested here through layerings, invasions, a palimpsestic inter-linguality. Karasick presented a live performance of ‘This Page Is an Occupied Territory’ in February 2024 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Afterwards, she sent the text to Lehrer, whom she had collaborated with on the post-pandemic book Ouvert Oeuvre: Openings (Lavender Ink, 2023). Almost immediately, the title and text of Karasick’s ‘Occupation’ poem suggested a visual setting that involved letterpress printing elements that could be used as blockades, barricades and border crossings. Lehrer worked with artist/printer Roni Gross who made prints of various wood and metal characters, blocks, dingbats and borders on letterpress proofing presses at the Center for Books in NYC and the Center for Editions at SUNY Purchase. Lehrer then made scans of the prints and visualized the poem digitally. As the poem progresses, the occupied pages become more and more boxed in, askew and rubbled to pieces. The resulting typographic landscapes combine text and image as one entity. The visualization of ‘This Page’ was inspired in part by the experimental typographer and partisan H. N. Werkman whose anti-Nazi publishing house led to his execution. An expanded version of this piece was printed as a tabloid-sized publication speaking to ways the ever-expanding war and daily bombardment of devastating news felt so outsized and overwhelming, in your face and hard to ‘handle’. This first edition of 700 copies was printed HP Indigo (digital offset) at the Newspaper Club in Glasgow, Scotland.