205. «Souls of the Labadie Tract» de Susan Howe

[Emissão Sáb.03.Set.2011.24h]

Há programas de rádio que quase são demasiado belos para existirem. Um deles é o Zepelim, há bons anos a sobrevoar os ouvintes da RUC por paisagens de oxigénio rarefeito e, mais recentemente (com orgulho babado nosso), referenciado na revista The Wire.

E se o Livro de Cabeceira fosse dar um passeio de Zepelim: que ouviria?

Quem sabe uma poeta e um músico. Que nem Susan Howe e David Grubbs.

«In 1684, members of a Utopian Quietist sect, consisting mainly of Dutch followers of the French Separatist Jean de Labadie, left their headquarters at Wieuwerd in the Netherlands in order to spread the new oeuvre de dieu while preparing themselves for the coming millennium. They settled in Bohemia Hundred, Cecil County, Maryland, where Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland meet. The 3,750 acre Labadie Tract, consisting of four necks of land, was bordered on the west by Long Creek, on the north by the cart road to Reedy Island, on the east by the Appoquinnimink Path, and on the South by Great Bohemia Creek. They called it New Bohemia.

I found the term ‘Labadist’ in reference to the genealogical research of Wallace Stevens and his wife Elsie Kachel Moll Stevens during the 1940s. Jean de Labadie. His reach is through language hints; through notes and maps. In the lapse of time the pressure of others. So it’s telepathic though who knows why or in what way. Labadists believed in, among other things, the necessity of inner illumination, diligence and contemplative reflection. Marriage was renounced. They held all property in common (including children) and supported themselves by manual labor and commerce.

In 1702, a Swedish pastor recalled his visit to the group in Maryland. “There are also the Apostles, who were on the Labady at Bohemia when I arrived in this country. Their number is now quite small.” In 1722, the community dissolved. When Samuel Bownas visited the site in 1727, “these people were all scattered and gone, and nothing of them remained of a religious community in that shape.” In 1795, Dennis Griffith’s landmark map of Maryland noted a “labadie poplar” at the northern extremity of the Labadie Tract. It was the one tree singled out on the entire map of the state.

The wind had seized the tree and ha, and ha,
Wallace Stevens»

IN: «Souls of the Labadie Tract» de Susan Howe

Créditos | Susan Howe (leitura, texto); David Grubbs (música).

Fundo sonoro adicional | Jeroen Vandesande (Unser Alter Verbundeter), Mike Oldfield (Ommadawn part 1).

Livro de Cabeceira: para ouvir sábado à meia-noite nos 107.9fm da Rádio Universidade de Coimbra.