‘A Brief History of Violence’
— Hannah Cohen
look up ‘how to kill’ >> refuse to look up >> at the ceiling fan
We live in a world of violence, or it certainly feels like it as I scroll through my multiple social media feeds: another shooting, sexual predators, and abusers. As ever, it’s important to read work that recognizes the harm in our society, and that’s what struck me about Preeti Vangani’s poem. Written like an outline and with a title reminiscent of Stephen Hawking’s famous book, Vangani lists several acts of violence from many types of people—the father’s “fingers / caressing a scotch glass”, the “refusals of sex”, or the self-destructive things we do to ourselves.
The varying lines and poetic structures reveal a speaker teetering in various areas of infliction and hurt; a family where “[a]ll letters are odes to spaces / mother left behind” and the opposing force that “must only be served, never induced”. ‘A Brief History of Violence’ is a window we’ve all looked through, a window we’re looking through in this moment.