The blue case

Abstract

This work is a case of a worlding with every wording, where material textuality creates a poetic space for thick description that helps me see the world as textual material. A thing, the blue case, with a bare handle on itself, offers relations that write me as and to and with my family, creating ‘the blue case’ as another thing for us to handle. The actual and virtual matter forms and reforms in these relations. As these relations unfold and refold, the blue case and ‘the blue case’ condense and expand, holding more and less than I expect. Those dull abstractions, the object and the objective, are not to be found here. Rather, I write towards ‘subatomic, atomic and molecular forces’ that are subjects in relation (Goodman 2018: 11). Words, too, the call and response of language, are part of this relational material play. The work is carried by this force, where language is ‘etymologically calling forth what the tongue does’ (Campbell 2020: 4). My tongue is untied and then, redrafted, tied again, as the blue case and ‘the blue case’ become differently attended and expressed.