6.09.2005

...the name for that social-ecological-imaginative utopia/pastoral (in my long poem Forth of July) is Jubilee.

Jubilee is an important Biblical concept, which combined 1) a seasonal rest-for-the-land (Sabbath), in which fields were allowed to lie fallow & recuperate, 2) a release of tenants from debt and indentured servants from servitude. (There's probably much more to it, but this is what I remember.) Jubilee became a symbol for African-American liberation (the "Day of Jubilee"). The word has been taken up in recent times by advocates for debt-relief for poor & developing nations.

There's quite a bit of social context in this regard (ie. the previous post) in Forth of July, from Stubborn Grew through the sequels. Stubborn deals somewhat tragicomically with RI political corruption, slavery, and the Populist movement, among other things. If you read back through the post here on June 6, you can see how some of these social concepts inform my most specialized "visionary" lingo-dialect.

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