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gaylorarchive · 1 year

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Big Reputations: Celebrity and Temporal Duration in/of Dickinson Lyrics by Elizabeth Dinneny

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On December 10, 2020, Emily Dickinson’s 190th birthday, singer-songwriter-superstar Taylor Swift announced the surprise release of her ninth studio album, evermore. The release was a shock, as Swift had released her first surprise album, folklore, a short five months previous. Swift called folklore “a product of isolation,” made together with a small group of musicians during the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its aesthetic, which continues into evermore, evokes the newly-popular “cottagecore” trend.[1] Swift spoke of her inspiration for the album’s cover photograph with Entertainment Weekly: “I had this idea…that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830” (Suskind). In folklore’s black-and-white cover image, Swift is the sleepwalking girl wearing a custom Stella McCartney jacket (Grindell) in the year of Emily Dickinson’s birth. In evermore’s full-color image, Swift has emerged from the woods and looks back toward it—notably diverging from the look of her eight previous album covers, in which her face appears up close, front and center. Perhaps evermore contains Swift’s least autobiographical lyrics, as some critics have suggested (Petrusich), thus opening up even more possibilities for fictional and biographical inspiration.[2] But we might take a more critical approach. Using the term “autobiographical” risks feigning individual influence and a singular archive. Taylor Swift is certainly known for writing specific autobiographical elements into her lyrics, but we need not abandon autobiography in the face of evermore’s expansive archive. Rather, we should ask: how do these archives mediate the autobiographic? Where do we find Swift and Dickinson, together, in “these imaginary/not imaginary tales” (@taylorswift13)?

The two so-called “sister record[s]” (@taylorswift13) contain stories from myriad archives, including allusions to Romanticism and Swift’s own life. While folklore, with its mentions of Wordsworth and the Lake District, appears invested in the figures and motifs of British Romanticism (Ellis), evermore seems most influenced by one writer in particular: Emily Dickinson. As a result of popular culture’s recent increased interest in Dickinson, Taylor Swift fans knew enough about the poet to begin speculating about Dickinson’s presence in evermore almost immediately. Most conspicuous is the album’s title (and concluding) track, “evermore,” which meditates on a failed relationship whose “pain would be for / evermore” (Swift et al.). The song recalls the final line of a letter-poem written by Emily Dickinson to Susan Huntington Dickinson. The poem ends:

I spilt the dew –

But took the morn, –

I chose this single star

From out the wilde night’s numbers –

Sue _ forevermore!

(OMC 76)

The song and the poem differ significantly in tone, as “evermore” recounts the miscommunications of a past relationship, and Dickinson’s letter expresses an endless devotion to her sister-in-law and lover, Susan Huntington Dickinson. However, both texts share an investment in letter-writing for the articulation and navigation of an intimate relationship. In “evermore,” one narrator is found “writing letters / addressed to the fire,” indicating a failure in communication and the eventual demise of the relationship. Dickinson’s letter-poem to Susan, in addition to celebrating an enduring relationship, demonstrates the value of the letter (and lyric) as a form of intimate expression. Far from being “addressed to the fire,” Emily Dickinson’s letter-poems made their way into Susan Huntington Dickinson’s hands, “a hedge away,” (OMC 76) for decades.

The duet’s speakers also use metaphors of shipwreck to recall their relationship’s collapse. For example, Swift sings, “Hey December / Guess I’m feeling unmoored,” and, later, Bon Iver sings, “I’m on the waves, out being tossed / Is there a line that I could just go cross?” These lines are only a few of evermore’s broad nautical and temporal vocabulary; the album opens with the line, “I’m like the water / when your ship rolled in that night” (Dessner and Swift). In “long story short,” whose joyful tone matches that of Dickinson’s aforementioned letter-poem, Swift sings, “my waves meet your shore / ever and evermore” (Dessner and Swift). The speaker of “long story short” hopes to moor, for evermore, in the song’s addressee. Here, we turn to Emily Dickinson again; in her poem that begins “Wild nights – Wild nights!”, the speaker is “Done with the Compass - / Done with the Chart!” and wishes to “moor” in the poem’s addressee:

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should b

Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -

To a Heart in port -

Done with the Compass -

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -

Ah - the Sea!

Might I but moor - tonight -

In thee!

(Fr269A)

Both Dickinson and Swift invoke the shore as the site of a relationship’s convergence.[3] The speakers escape turbulent waters by finding stability in another person, on the shore, repeatedly. The comparison is complicated by the conditional temporality of “wild nights,” and the poem’s queer interpretations and theorizations cannot go unstated (Smith, Brinck-Johnsen), By reading Dickinson and Swift together, we see how both lyricists consider temporality and the potential of a “forevermore” in multiple forms, including that of an intimate romantic relationship.

The folklore/evermore “era,” to use a Swiftian term (Braca), embraces a cottagecore aesthetic, easily identifiable in the album’s lyrics, acoustic instrumentation, woodsy cover art, and promotional images. The cottagecore aesthetic combines the fable of Dickinson the genius recluse with Dickinson the R/romantic, complementing the conditions and themes of both Swift albums. Swift’s most cottagecore song, “ivy,” has received significant attention from a number of Dickinson fans, who believe the song is inspired by Emily and Susan’s relationship. The album’s tenth track, which has been described as “a folky, convoluted song,” (Pareles) involves a married speaker who falls in love with someone else. The speaker describes the three of them (speaker, lover, husband) in a room, possibly at a party:

I wish to know

The fatal flaw that makes you long to be

Magnificently cursed

He’s in the room

Your opal eyes are all I wish to see

He wants what’s only yours (Swift, Antonoff, Dessner)

Neither the speaker nor the “magnificently cursed” lover are assigned pronouns, leaving plenty of room for queer interpretations of this song about a forbidden, passionate relationship, which the speaker calls “the goddamn fight of my life” (Swift et al). In their own queer readings, Dickinson fans have made fan videos of “EmiSue” scenes set to the song, whose lyrics can be cleanly mapped onto their relationship.[4] In addition to biographical consistencies, the characters of “ivy” employ metaphors of death and augmented temporality that resonate affectively with much of Dickinson’s poetry. The song begins in a graveyard, or at least a metaphorical one: “How’s one to know? / I’d meet you where the spirit meets the bones / In a faith-forgotten land” (Swift et al.).[5] The graveyard functions as a safe place for the two to get together, removed from the public eye and from the expectations of “the living.” Among the dead, the illicit affair of “ivy” is allowed to flourish, as the speaker sings, “my house of stone / your ivy grows, / and now I’m covered in you” (Swift et al).

Using botanical imagery, the speaker describes an organic infiltration of the “magnificently cursed” lover, or unruly ivy, on the married, heterosexual home. Further, the speaker sings, “the old widow goes to the stone every day / But I don’t, I just sit here and wait / Grieving for the living” (Swift et al.). With its affinity for the dead, this secret relationship thus appears unconcerned with linear time and social realities. The speaker grieves for their living relationship, which has yet to end, then happily escapes to “your dreamland” (Swift et al.). Emily Dickinson wrote many poems about death, graves,[6] and privacy.[7] Although we push back on the idea of Dickinson as recluse, Dickinson’s life-long romantic relationship with Susan was certainly enjoyed in private. Similarly, the contentedly secret relationship of “ivy” defies heterosexual expectations of public interpellation. Rather than become legible to friends (as the three seem to travel in similar circles) and family, the two, “a goddamn blaze in the dark,” endure.

Swift is known for leaving self-referential clues throughout her corpus, so it’s worth noting that evermore might not contain her first nod to Dickinson. repuation, Swift’s album most explicitly about her struggles with fame and social media, ends with the album’s most romantic and sole piano track, “New Year’s Day.” In the song, the speaker sings to another “you,” the morning after a New Year’s Eve party. A similar reflection on the duration of romantic relationships, Swift implores them, “Don’t read the last page,” and tells of what remains following the celebration:

There’s glitter on the floor

After the party

Girls carrying their shoes

Down in the lobby

Candle wax and Polaroids

On the hardwood floor

…you and me, forevermore

Here, again, Swift uses “forevermore” to describe hope for the endurance of an intimate relationship, just as she uses the phrase in “long story short” and “evermore.” “New Year’s Day” emerges as the album’s most cathartic moment. After numerous tracks about Swift’s most arduous years in the spotlight, “New Year’s Day” finishes the album as a song solely about her intentionally private relationship with current partner Joe Alwyn (Stanton). In addition to repeating the desire for a forevermore relationship, the more transparent “long story short” explicitly references these same reputation moments from Swift’s life and discography, offering a quick account of Swift’s romantic troubles and a longer reflection on Swift’s falling out of public favor. As one critic writes, “conceptually, it [“long story short”] retreads reputation ground,” (Ahlgrim and Larocca) featuring clear autobiographic elements and expressing a frustration with the attention and misogynistic demonization that accompanies fame: “And I fell from the pedestal / Right down the rabbit hole / Long story short, it was a bad time” (Dessner and Swift).

Rather than continue to pick apart evermore’s lyrics for possible references to Dickinson’s poetry (as there are plenty more[8]), we should turn to overlapping and interacting thematics and conditions of production. In social media posts and interviews, Taylor Swift emphasized the conditions of the sister albums’ production; that is, she underlined the fact that both were created “in isolation,” in relatively quick succession, and secretly amid a small circle of collaborators (@taylorswift13). Swift told Entertainment Weekly: “I wasn’t making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn’t process it as an album. This was just my daydream space” (Suskind). Emily Dickinson did not write her poetry during a global pandemic, but she did often write in a kind of isolation, disseminating her poetry among close friends and family with less regard for the expectations of print publishing (Smith). Isolation here means, of course, not the sequestration of the individual artist, but the cultivation of a small, trusted collective through which the artist’s work is circulated and workshopped. Their works-of-isolation now commercial and widely distributed art objects, both Dickinson and Swift have grown into infamous public figures, onto whom their readers, listeners, and critics project personalities, intentions, and rumors.

If Taylor Swift is a celebrity, then Emily Dickinson’s ghost is one as well. Dickinson’s ghost is the figure of Dickinson in and constructed by popular culture, shifting and disappearing into words and works like those discussed in this exhibition. By ghost, I mean the specter cast by fame, a formulation that Dickinson used in her own writing, “at a time when ghosts were ubiquitous within literary tourism and when a visit to the writer’s home or meeting with a celebrity was akin to a spiritual encounter” (Finnerty 34). Several speakers found in Dickinson’s poetry revere the dead like a fan might revere their favorite celebrity, visiting the star's birth place, home, and grave (Finnerty 45). The dead celebrity thus becomes a ghost, the product of public reverence or, to use a word from Swift’s lyrical vocabulary, the product of reputation. Though she did hope to publish, Dickinson ruminated on fame across many poems and letters, expressing a desire for it but also often a deep concern about the restrictions of print publishing (Reynolds, “I’m Nobody…”, Finnerty) and the potential misconstruing of the person by celebrity. Commercial publishing opens up the potential for a ghost, made immortal but out of the artist’s control, defined by critics, scholars, and other readers. In her lifetime, Dickinson’s handmade fascicles were self-published; she produced copies of poems, bound them together, and distributed them herself, but the fascicles on their own do not conjure the specters of Dickinson that we encounter today. Martin Greenup reads the inaccessible dead of Dickinson’s “Safe in their Alabaster chambers” as her own poems, the chambers her fascicles if she did not publish commercially (356). Without publishing, Dickinson and her poems would most likely not endure the unforgiving abyss of time, and her fascicles would remain untouched by generations of readers, safe but dead, we might say, “forevermore.”

Perhaps confirming her most serious anxieties and optimisms, Dickinson haunts writers and popular culture more than a hundred years after her death. Specters of her reputation emerge across these essays, making this exhibition a kind of graveyard of multiple Emily Dickinsons, none of them “true,” many of them contradictory. In Taylor Swift’s introduction to reputation, she writes that “gossip blogs will scour the lyrics” to explain the meaning of each song, connecting them to Swift’s ex-boyfriends and paparazzi photos. She concludes with a critique of celebrity and identity itself: “We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us. There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation” (Swift). Much of the same can be said about Emily Dickinson, whose poetry and larger archive has been scoured for evidence of male lovers, proof of her supposed isolation, and combed through for final, stable versions of her poems.[9] Despite these attempts at discerning the facts, there will only ever be Dickinson’s reputation, as constructed by her readers. We might respond to Swift’s assertion by asking what we do, then, with the archive. How should we interpret the archive of the living (or dead) person? Let us turn, one last time, to Dickinson’s own lyrics:

Fame is the one that does not stay —

It’s occupant must die

Or out of sight of estimate

Ascend incessantly —

Or be that most insolvent thing

A Lightning in the Germ —

Electrical the embryo

But we demand the Flame

The speaker is uninterested in fame, which remains at the mercy of cultural interest and the status of its dead occupant. Instead, the speaker urges us to “demand the Flame.” What Flame of Dickinson’s must we demand? Perhaps the Flame is another kind of ghost, but one that is much more difficult to make out. The Flame might be the stubborn specter that endures in spite of attempts at erasure or adjustment. Despite Mabel Loomis Todd, Higginson, and others’ efforts to shape Dickinson’s legacy into one more marketable, more heterosexual, and more conservative, there remains a stubborn ghost, a “goddamn blaze in the dark,” (Swift et al) deep in the archive. She appears only in flickers, but she endures, just as we must demand, over and over, to see her.

Swift’s evermore is only the most recent iteration of Dickinson in music; numerous artists and songwriters have been inspired by the poet. For a selection of these, explore the exhibition's curated Spotify playlist.

#gaylor #emily dickinson #literary references #evermore #folklore #ivy #reputation #new year's day #new years day #joe alwyn #gaylorarchive

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pointofreturn · 2 months

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professor's pet, pt. 3

The next semester, I signed up for the professor’s literature class. Several of my friends were in the class. We were loud and silly and everyone was trying to impress each other with their opinions on the texts the professor built his career on. But he had that special ability to make us feel comfortable enough to be our weird, nerdy selves. The class was a real-life Dead Poet’s Society, at least for the few weeks we were together.

He seemed unable to hide his focus on me. If I leaned my head over to rest, he’d lean into my ear to ask if I was okay instead of listening to the student speaking. During a guest lecturer’s speech, I got up to excuse myself and he followed just after, prompting an intimate moment translucent to the entire class, pressing to make sure I was okay. He gave me a box of Thin Mints and walked me out to the parking lot late when no one else was around and my car smelled like weed. He always held the door for me and never failed to provide a chivalrous hand to help me. One day, I remind him about something he forgot to send me, and he earnestly promised to be better to me, better for me. Surely, he’s naturally a gentleman, and all of these happenings are little things that happened to every other woman he had eyes for, but there was a slow flame burning between us.

And I’m not the only one who felt it.

Two of my friends approached me and asked what was going on between us. I don’t say that anything is, but I don’t say that anything isn’t either.

“I knew it! He treats you differently. It’s really noticeable.”

“I’ve never seen him act that way with anyone. I can’t even get him to answer an email.”

I wished I’d been more willing to see the warning signs. But as always, I was intoxicated with his obsession with me. I couldn’t help but continue to provide the temptation, continue playing the chess game.

Just before spring break, I borrowed an expensive book of his for a prospective project. It was March 2020. COVID destroyed the world overnight. I stayed in Florida and he went back to the Midwest. We didn’t see each other for two years.

Yet, we kept in touch, even though there was no reason. He remembered texted me each year on my birthday and Thanksgiving and even early on Christmas morning when the last thing on his mind should be a student. I have a distinct memory of him saying he didn’t do things like that because he too often forgot. We talked occasionally about my thesis and Ph.D. applications.

He started texting me late at night. But no boundaries were crossed, yet.

We talked about seeing each other when he came back. I decided to stay at Another University for another degree, hopeful I’ll be able to establish a long-term career and finally achieve job stability. I take classes and teach online, staying concerned and vigilant about COVID long after the rest of the world decided to leave it behind.

During the time the professor and I were separated, I met my friend Jane. We quickly became close, she moved to Florida, and we started hanging out regularly.

In the spring, the professor returns.

I still work remotely, but Jane sees the professor often. She tells me they talk about how wonderful I am, and how we should hang out with her and her husband. I told her nothing about the seemingly endless slow burn.

She comes over to my house one night, gushing.

“Isn’t he so cute? And single? I almost can’t believe it…”

“Yeah, he’s a mystery! No denying that.”

Jane pauses, lighting another cigarette and sipping on a condensed glass of wine.

“Have I told you I’m in an open relationship?”

I’m caught off guard; I don’t expect this.

“Oh…that’s interesting!”

“Yeah—our rules are ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ unless it’s important or an emergency.”

“And that’s worked for you?” I already knew it hadn’t, or it wouldn’t forever.

“Oh yeah! Being open makes the marriage so much better.” She has that devil look in her eyes. “I’ve had a few boyfriends since we’ve been married. And now, I might have my sights set on a new one…”

“______?” His name burns on my tongue. I’ve always hated saying it.

“Of course! If I can ever figure him out. I think he’s flirting back at me, but I can’t tell if that’s just his personality.”

I smile, not really wanting to continue the conversation but trying to look unbothered.

“What is it?” she drags the cigarette stub. “I can tell there’s something you want to say.”

At this moment, I trust her, I think she’s my friend.

And in a lapse of judgment, I tell her about our flame.

I explain the situation to her with as much ration as I can. And that’s what it is—a situation between a student and professor quickly nearing sticky territory. I tell her the situation is confusing for me and there’s something unexplainable about the connection. I tell her I can’t deny my attraction to him and I’m not sure where this will ever end up.

“Hmm,” she says after I finish. She holds herself in that way I’m unsure of. “Well, I wouldn’t take him too seriously.” She finally puts out the cigarette, burnt through the filter.

“But I’m still gonna try to fuck him anyway.”

I should have known at this moment to cut her off.

#creative nonfiction #creative writing #memoir #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writing #academia #graduate school

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aaknopf · 1 year

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In the introduction to Together in a Sudden Strangeness, an anthology of American poems written into the cataclysm of 2020, editor Alice Quinn, another student of Emily Dickinson, quotes the lines “There’s been a Death in the Opposite House, / as lately as Today—”: words with increased resonance in that first Covid spring, when poets across the land were writing their way through fear and illness. Some, we learn in the anthology’s pages, were also working doctors on the front lines; some were teachers learning to Zoom; many were mourning the systemic inequalities the pandemic brought urgently to the fore. It’s hard to choose just one from this vivid congress of poets; we offer a trio on the theme of communication in isolation.

Corona Diary by Cornelius Eady

These days, you want the poem to be A mask, soft veil between what floats Invisible, but known in the air. You’ve just read that there’s a singer You love who might be breathing their last, And wish the poem could travel, Unintrusive, as poems do from The page to the brain, a fan’s medicine. Those of us who are lucky enough To stay indoors with a salary count the days By press conference. For others, there is Always the dog and the park, the park And the dog. A relative calls; how you doin’? (Are you a ghost?) The buds emerge, on time, For their brief duty. The poem longs to be a filter, but In floats Spring’s insistence. We wait.

If Indeed I Am Ill, Brother, by Julia Guez

Tell me about London, the weather there in spring outside the walls of the Great Hall.

These things matter less to me than the sound of your summary, shadows cast on the watery

surfaces of my mind by invisible fingers whose energy is everything, as you know.

These sonatas, these scores, tell me what of them will last when everything falls away—

Tea for You, Too by Ron Padgett

My friends, I want to tell you that in general things are all right with me, relatively speaking. Just a second, here’s Einstein asking where the tea is. I reassure him it will be ready soon, relatively speaking, and he shuffles back to the room that holds him, with plenty of space for that cup of tea, even though the cup is twelve feet in diameter, about the same size as my thinking of you this morning.

. .

More on this book and author:

Learn more about Together in a Sudden Strangeness edited by Alice Quinn.

Browse other books by Cornelius Eady, Julia Guez, and Ron Padgett.

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

#TogetherAudio #together audio #poem-a-day #knopf poetry #knopfpoetry #national poetry month #poem #books #knopf #poetry #PadgettAudio #Together in a sudden strangeness #guezaudio #eadyaudio

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willowstreetstories · 2 years

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Erotic Things there is no self just rapture By Rajiv Mohabir

The texture of wet clay on a throwing wheel

The blue of an eastern bluebird when spring crashes on the heels of winter

Keats’s negative capability has the potential *

Mistaking your lover for someone else when he turns his back

Exotic sounds like exotic. But not when people call me this * The erotic makes sense when we think of jouissance and how that means there is no self just rapture. When I say jouissance, I like the eroticism of it being in French with that final nasal and sibilant. Doesn’t this sound like how a romance novelist would write it—and to me my own auto-colonial reading is not erotic, of French that is. Of English and Spanish too—they sound like colonial coercion, and that’s not erotic. *

The pharmakon: how snake venom poisons, how the antidote distills from that very venom

The space of indeterminacy *

Dark-skinned men in short shirts and shorts, men with bubble butts and thick thighs *

“Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy.” —Audre Lorde *

Queers and not fitting in one envelope or one’s shorts

But maybe eros is exotic, and by this, I mean the very textural gesture of the word, what it points to, what we hide in clothes or words *

The texture of language

The linguistic texture of Bhojpuri, Creolese, and English brush up together—living their taboos together—through the act of emergence despite repression

Secret languages that we speak to each other in *

The lips when they bite strawberries, how they envelop the red

Swollen strawberry guava. The smell as they rot on the ground—like wine. I remember tramping through a sprawling forest path at Kuli‘ou‘ou Ridge where the forest floor practiced its winemaking. The entire climb was perfumed and that was erotic, the emerald of the mountain, the cloud cover like fog and the turning of sugar into liquor.

Rajiv Mohabir is the author of Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021, finalist for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry), The Cowherd’s Son (Tupelo Press 2017, winner of the 2015 Kundiman Prize; Eric Hoffer Honorable Mention 2018), and The Taxidermist’s Cut (Four Way Books 2016, winner of the Four Way Books Intro to Poetry Prize, finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry in 2017), and translator of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara (1916) (Kaya Press 2019) which received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant Award and the 2020 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.

His essays can be found in places like Asian American Writers Workshop’s The Margins, Bamboo Ridge Journal, Moko Magazine, Cherry Tree, Kweli, and others, and has been a “Notable Essay” in Best American Essays 2018. His memoir Antiman (Restless Books 2021, finalist for the PEN Open Book Award, and the 2022 Publishing Triangle Randy Shilts Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir), received the 2019 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing. Currently he is an assistant professor of poetry in the MFA program at Emerson College and the translations editor at Waxwing Journal.

#rajiv mohabir #poetry #zuihitsu

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experimentaltranslation · 2 years

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6.3 Transcriduction

This translation is inspired by Charles Bernstein’s contribution to Chain 10, which used a source text culled from an email from his Chinese translator, and translated that into multiple languages. It is also of course inspired by the final procedure in Mónica de la Torre’s Repetition Nineteen which translates a conversation by group of translators collectively translating de la Torre’s Equivalencies/Equivalencias into Russian. Outranspo is also currently preparing a transcsritranslation of their translation of the Chinese poem “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den” (pp.)

Materials.

• A text for translation, ideally something that will inspire conversation.

• A transcription surface (pen and paper or computer); alternatively the conversation can be recorded and transcribed later, but there is also something interesting about what the transcriber hears and is able to translate.

Players.

• Translators, at least two.

• A transcriber, at least one.

Steps

• Translators translate, talking through their choices, doubts, hesitations etc. as they go.

• The transcriber transcribes what they hear

• The group collectively rereads the transcription, potentially editing.

Examples

This example is taken from a workshop I lead in 2020 with the participants in the Diplôme Universitaire pour les animateur.ice.s des aterliers d’écriture creative, a University certificate program at the Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3 that trains creative writing workshop guides.

Traduire « Equivalencies/Equivalencias » de Monica de la Torre

Atelier de traduction créative du 30 septembre, 2020

dans le cadre du DU d’animateur.ice.s d’ateliers d’écriture créative

Est-ce qu’il y a quelqu’un qui arrive à lire ça

One silence flare

Flare c’est quoi

J’ai pas compris

On lit les deux phrases

Qu’est-ce que ça veux dire flare

C’est le nez

Ça c’est une traduction créative

C’est l’intuition

C’est appeler

On va regarder sur internet

Mais c’est féminin

C’est féminin un flare

Il y a des mots qui sont féminins en espagnol et en français

Une fusée ils disent

Attend je vais vérifier

Tu as regardé sur DeepL ?

Non sur Google Translate

C’est peut-être un appel

Un appel ?

Ben voilà

On n’est pas obligé de traduire

Un appel un silence

Une fusée une éclatée

J’ai pas envie de traduire

Est-ce que le but c’est de traduire de façon créative

Je mets juste hakuna matata

Je vais prendre les notes là

T’es sur Deep Lie ?

Qui c’est qui sait ce que veux dire un flare

J’ai un truc avec le cancer

C’est un quoi un sin

C’est un vice

Un vice de café c’est bizarre

Je comprends rien

Un un silence

C’est

Un sin of coffee

A sip c’est une gorgée de café

Avant qu’il soit amer

Avant que ce soit amer

Une gorgée de café avant qu’il soit froid

ou amer

enfin caféine

La flare je trouve une poussée

Moi je veux pas traduire

Je veux pas faire ça

Un silence une lueur

Ah bon

Si Google arrive pas j’arrive pas

La réaction de llamarada en parenthèses flare

Quand tu traduis en français c’est une poussée

Se manifeste par tumorale

Il faut voir le sens qui se recouvre avec l’espagnol

Burning light

Attract attention in an emergency

Bright burning light

Une fusée éclairante. Ou bien une flambée

Une fusée

On continue à traduire la suite et on choisira

Mais ça fait vachement longue

avant l’amertume

Un soupçon peut-être

Toute la question c’est est-ce qu’on est créatif ou est-ce qu’on est fidèle

On peut dire c’est un trou

Un trou c’est rigolo

Un espace dans un trou

Un gouffre

Faut trouver un autre mot à part trou

J’aime bien trou

Translate

Un truc dans un machin

Un trou dans un trou

Une lacune dans un trou

C’est bien un trou dans un trou

Oui mais ça appauvri par rapport à l’original

C’est pas sûr

C’est prétentieux

Et en espagnol

Un espace un écart

C’est vraiment un espace

Ça fait plus un espace dans un trou

DeepL il dit une lacune dans un trou

Une lacune

Ça peut être un manque

Oui ça peut être un manque

On met quoi

Mais on met tous collectivement quelque chose

Un manque dans un trou je préfère parce qu’il y a deux mots différent

Un manque dans un trou c’est assez joli

Ça me plait

Un manque dans un trou pourquoi pas

Ou un trou dans un manque

Le trou fait débat

Il nous reste flare

Mais non c’est lueur

C’est soit lueur soit éclat

Un silence un éclat

Un un silence un éclat

C’est à la fois la lueur et une poussée

Un un silence un éclat

On s’était pas mis d’accord

Après ça peut être un soupçon de café

Toi tu dirais avant l’amertume

Avant qu’il soit amer

De sens

Soit amer quoi

Je garderais ça

Ça complète le sens

On vote

La dernière vous avez dit quoi

Je trouve ça pas très jolie

Un trou dans un manque

Ah ben non

L’original c’est l’espagnol ou l’anglais en fait

C’est pas hoyo

J’arrive pas à lire

C’est quoi on sait pas là

Hoyo c’est trou

C’est un trouillot dans un trou

Un rouillot a dentro

T’as le g qui vient dessus

C’est quoi la lettre

Rouillot ou trouillot

La dernière strophe du poème peut nous aider

Et oui on ne l’a pas même pas lu en entier

Ah ben on est obligé de traduire

J’arrive pas à traduire là

Je comprends pas ce qu’il faut traduire

Moi je reste en mode médiéval

Je vais ramener mon phlegme

C’est une bouée dans un trou

Une oreille l’hoyo

Je vais essayer de traduire la suite

Espace

C’est les yeux oyos

Espace en espagnol

C’est un h

Ben oui c’est un h

Un trou dans un trou

Un trou dans le vide

Les deux

Un trou dans le vide ça vous va pas ?

Comment dire espace en espangol ?

Agujero c’est quoi ?

Alors le vide c’est vraiment très créatif

Il n’y a rien rempli

Un trou dans le néant

En espagnol il y a des o partout

Il y a un vide dans ton cours

Un trou dans le vide c’est pas mal ça

Un silence un un silence

Du coup gap c’est pas vraiment trou c’est écart distance intervalle l’omission le vide

Ça c’est joli

Alors ce serait un espace dans le vide

S’il y a vide

Vide intervalle manque

Vide dans un trou

Les deux mots veulent dire trou

Ah vous voulez créer ben si vous voulez créer

Je trouve que le mot intervalle est joli

Un intervalle dans le vide

The gap between intervalle entre

Ecart un écart dans le vide

Un espace sinon

Les trous dans le vide c’est joli

Trou dans le vide est mieux que l’espace dans le vide

Mais c’est moche le mot trou

Moi je préfère trou dans le vide

Alors on vote

Ce sera plus rapide

Alors on vote

Ça vide dire trou vide

Venez on vote sinon on va rester quatre cents ans

Attends on vote entre quoi et quoi

Il y avait un manque dans un trou

C’est super glauque

Il y a un trou dans un trou

Un espace dans le vide

Un manque dans un trou

Il y avait quoi je ne me souviens plus

Un intervalle dans le vide

Dans le vide ? Toujours dans le vide

Ben il y avait trou

Là tu tombe là

Là on fait un écart en plus

Bon allez c’est l’espace dans le vide qui a gagné

C’est fossé aussi

Qui s’oppose à l’espace dans le vide

Moi je m’oppose dans un manque dans un trou

C’est la majorité qui gagne

Allez ça marche

C’est un peu tirer sur les cheveux

C’est le coffee le coffee trou le trou noir

Le coffee trou

C’est pas dans le vide ça peut être dans le vide

Oui mais on est créatif donc on passe par le vide parce que ça sonne mieux

Alors on vote sur le ou un ?

En français on dit le on dit pas un

Un grand vide ça fait répétition c’est pas très joli

C’est ce qu’elle fait elle répète

Ça contient un truc super

Dans les deux ce qu’elle fait c’est répéter

On est d’accord soyons fidèles

On ne sait pas

Dans le sens espagnol

Oui

Alors ça donne quoi

Un espace dans le vide un espace dans un vide

Si on met un espace au vide ça va pas

Espace vide voilà

Café amer on se dépêche

Ça donne quoi

J’ai un. Un silence. Je ne sais pas. Un éclat

Oui un éclat

Une gorgée de café avant qu’il soit amer ou avant l’amertume

Vous préférez un soupçon

Ah non ah non je ne suis pas d’accord

Ah oui c’est mieux un soupçon une gorgée ça n’a pas le même sens

Un zeste !

Qui gorgée !

Qui veut gorgée de café !

Qui veut soupçon

Ben c’est proche

On n’a pas compté

Non ben on a gagné

Avant l’amertume !

Ah non avant qu’il soit amer !

Avant qu’il ne supprime l’amertume !

Ah ça c’est poétique

Un café avant la mer avant la mer et la montagne

Qu’il soit amer j’ai l’impression

Moi seule

Ensuite on remonte

J’ai juste une question

J’ai juste une question à Lily, on fait une traduction littérale ou on fait une interprétation

A mon avis le plus simple c’est de faire une traduction littérale parce que si on fait une interprétation le consensus sera beaucoup plus difficile

C’est le verbe être au passé ?

Après taste il y a l’idée du gout

Ça veut dire supprime

Avant qu’il ne supprime l’amertume

C’est lourd

Ben non c’est DeepL

Quoi non

Je ne sais pas pourquoi il traduit comme ça

Il y en a qui disent ça

Bon on a tout

Non pas du tout

Je ne sais toujours pas

Moi c’est l’amertume

On a dit qu’on soit fidèle au texte

Ça n’existe pas la fidélité au texte

Ne supprime pas

Qu’il avait un gout amer

Avant qu’il ait un gout amer

Oui mais Google

C’est plus français

C’est supprime

C’est pas un l c’est un i

Dans la poésie ça suggère ça dit pas mot à mot le truc

Un poème c’est censé être un peu joli quand même

Je vous lis pour voir si ça fait un peu de sens

Avant qu’il je trouve que ça cloche

Mais il y a pas le gout amer

Mais on s’en fiche on adapte

C’était plus fluide

Avant l’amertume

On a le taste on a tout

C’est pas mal

Moi je trouve qu’au niveau du rythme c’est plus fourni

L’amertume c’est un peu sec

Vous préférez un deux ou trois

C’est le troisième l’amertume

En anglais before it tasted il n’y a pas que que que

C’est à l’oreille

Qu’est-ce qui nous plaît

Je crois que chacun

Il faut voter

Je refais

DeepL Translation into English

Is there anyone who can read this

One silence flare

What is flare

I don't understand

We read the two sentences

What does flare mean

It's the nose

This is a creative translation

It's intuition

This is calling

We'll look it up on the internet

But it's feminine

It's feminine a flare

There are words that are feminine in Spanish and in French

A rocket they say

Wait, I'll check

Did you check on DeepL?

No on Google Translate

Maybe it's a call

A call?

Well, that's it.

We don't have to translate

A call a silence

A rocket a burst

I don't want to translate

Is the point to translate creatively

I just put hakuna matata

I'll take the notes here

Are you on Deep Lie?

Who knows what a flare means

I got a thing about cancer

It's a what a sin

It's a vice

A coffee vice is weird

I don't get it

A silence

It is

A sin of coffee

A sip is a sip of coffee

Before it is bitter

Before it's bitter

A sip of coffee before it is cold

or bitter

finally caffeine

The flare I find a push

I don't want to translate

I don't want to do that

A silence a glow

Oh well

If Google doesn't come I don't come

llamarada's reaction in flare brackets

When you translate in French it is a push

Is manifested by tumoral

It is necessary to see the sense that overlaps with the Spanish

Burning light

Attract attention in an emergency

Bright burning light

A flare. Or a flare

A flare

We continue to translate the rest and we will choose

But it is really long

before the bitterness

A hint maybe

The question is whether we are creative or faithful

You can say it's a hole

A hole is funny

A space in a hole

An abyss

You have to find another word besides hole

I like hole

Translate

A thing in a thingy

A hole in a hole

A gap in a hole

It's a hole in a hole

Yes, but it's poorer than the original

It's not safe

It's pretentious

And in Spanish

A space a gap

It's really a space

It's more like a gap in a hole

DeepL it says a gap in a hole

A gap

It can be a gap

Yes it can be a gap

We put what

But we all collectively put something

A gap in a hole I prefer because there are two different words

A lack in a hole is quite nice

I like that

A lack in a hole why not

Or a hole in a hole

The hole is debated

It remains us flare

But no, it's glow

It is either glow or glare

A silence a glare

It's both a glow and a push

One silence one burst

We didn't agree

Afterwards it can be a touch of coffee

You would say before the bitterness

Before it was bitter

Of sense

Be bitter what

I would keep this

It completes the meaning

We vote

The last one you said

I find it not very pretty

A hole in a gap

Oh no

The original is Spanish or English in fact

It's not hoyo

I can't read it

What is it we don't know

Hoyo is hole

It is a hole in a hole

It's a hole in a hole

You've got the g on it

What is the letter

I'm not sure if it's a hole or a rouillot

The last stanza of the poem can help us

And yes we haven't even read it all

Ah well we are obliged to translate

I can't translate it now

I don't understand what to translate

I'll stay in medieval mode

I'll bring my phlegm

It is a buoy in a hole

An ear the hoyo

I'll try to translate the rest

Space

It is the eyes oyos

Space in Spanish

It is an h

Yes, it's an h

A hole in a hole

A hole in the void

Both of them

A hole in the void doesn't suit you?

How to say space in espangol?

What is Agujero?

So the void is really very creative

There is nothing filled

A hole in the void

In Spanish there are o's everywhere

There is a void in your course

A hole in the void that's not bad

A silence a silence

So gap is not really hole it's gap distance interval omission the void

That's nice

Then it would be a space in the void

If there is a void

Void interval lack

Void in a gap

Both words mean hole

Ah you want to create well if you want to create

I think the word interval is nice

An interval in the gap

The gap between interval between

Gap a gap in the void

A gap otherwise

The gap in the void is nice

Hole in the void is better than space in the void

But it's ugly the word hole

I prefer hole in the void

So we vote

It will be faster

So we vote

It means empty hole

Come on, let's vote or we'll stay four hundred years

Wait, we vote between what and what

There was a gap in a hole

It's super creepy

There's a hole in a hole

A space in the void

A gap in a hole

There was what I can't remember

A gap in the void

In the void? Always in the void

Well there was a hole

There you fall

There we make a gap in addition

Well, it's the space in the void that won

It's ditch too

Who opposes the space in the void

I oppose myself in a lack in a hole

It is the majority which wins

Go it works

It is a little drawn on the hair

It is the coffee the coffee hole the black hole

The coffee hole

It's not in a vacuum it can be in a vacuum

Yes but we're creative so we'll go with the void because it sounds better

So we vote on the or a?

In French we say le we don't say un

A big empty space that makes repetition it is not very pretty

That's what she does, she repeats

It contains a super thing

In both what it makes it is to repeat

We agree let's be faithful

We don't know

In the Spanish sense

Yes

Then it gives what

A space in the void a space in a void

If we put a space in the void it will not go

Empty space, that's it

Bitter coffee we hurry

What does it look like?

I have a. A silence. I don't know. A burst

Yes, a burst

A sip of coffee before it's bitter or before the bitterness

You prefer a sip

Ah no ah no I don't agree

Ah yes, it's better a sip a sip doesn't have the same meaning

A zest!

A sip!

Who wants a sip of coffee!

Who wants a sip

Well, it's close

We didn't count

No well we won

Before the bitterness!

Oh no, before it is bitter!

Before it removes the bitterness!

Ah that's poetic

A coffee before the sea before the sea and the mountain

That it is bitter I have the impression

I alone

Then we go back up

I have just one question

I have just one question for Lily, do we do a literal translation or do we do an interpretation

In my opinion, it's easier to do a literal translation because if you do an interpretation, the consensus will be much more difficult

Is it the verb to be in the past tense?

After taste there is the idea of taste

It means to remove

Before it removes the bitterness

It is heavy

No, it's DeepL

What no

I don't know why he translates like that

Some people say that

Well, we have everything

No we don't

I still don't know

I'm bitter

We said we would be faithful to the text

There is no such thing as being faithful to the text

Do not suppress

That it had a bitter taste

Before it had a bitter taste

Yes but Google

It is more French

It's deleted

It's not an l it's an i

In poetry it suggests it doesn't say the thing word for word

A poem is supposed to be a little pretty

I read you to see if it makes sense

Before I find out it's not right

But there's no bitter taste

But we don't care, we'll adapt

It was more fluid

Before the bitterness

We got the taste we got it all

It's not bad

I think that the rhythm is more complete

The bitterness is a bit dry

You prefer a two or three

It's the third bitterness

In English before it tasted there is not that that

It is to the ear

What we like

I believe that each one

It is necessary to vote

I do it again

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authormarialberg · 3 days

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Poetry as Survival

In the Special Section “Inspiration” in the Jan/Feb 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine, several of the poets used the word “survival” when talking about how their collection began. P&W Collage #19 – Survival Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes who wrote The Inheritance of Haunting (assoc link) said, “This book emerged as a result of poetry as a mode of survival and healing at the intersections of my own…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry #poetry forms #poetry immersion #portable MFA #prompts #writers #writing

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april-is · 1 year

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April 29, 2023: June, Alex Dimitrov

June Alex Dimitrov

There will never be more of summer than there is now. Walking alone through Union Square I am carrying flowers and the first rosé to a party where I’m expected. It’s Sunday and the trains run on time but today death feels so far, it’s impossible to go underground. I would like to say something to everyone I see (an entire city) but I’m unsure what it is yet. Each time I leave my apartment there’s at least one person crying, reading, or shouting after a stranger anywhere along my commute. It’s possible to be happy alone, I say out loud and to no one so it’s obvious, and now here in the middle of this poem. Rarely have I felt more charmed than on Ninth Street, watching a woman stop in the middle of the sidewalk to pull up her hair like it’s an emergency—and it is. People do know they’re alive. They hardly know what to do with themselves. I almost want to invite her with me but I’ve passed and yes it’d be crazy like trying to be a poet, trying to be anyone here. How do you continue to love New York, my friend who left for California asks me. It’s awful in the summer and winter, and spring and fall last maybe two weeks. This is true. It’s all true, of course, like my preference for difficult men which I had until recently because at last, for one summer the only difficulty I’m willing to imagine is walking through this first humid day with my hands full, not at all peaceful but entirely possible and real.

(June is my birthday month and also the best month. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.)

More like this: » Steps, Frank O'Hara » After Work, Richard Jones » Dolores Park, Keetje Kuipers » Awaking in New York, Maya Angelou » A Step Away From Them, Frank O'Hara

Today in:

2022: Poem to My Child, If Ever You Shall Be, Ross Gay 2021: Choi Jeong Min, Franny Choi 2020: Earl, Louis Jenkins 2019: Kul, Fatimah Asghar 2018: My Life Was the Size of My Life, Jane Hirshfield 2017: I Would Ask You To Reconsider The Idea That Things Are As Bad As They’ve Ever Been, Hanif Abdurraqib 2016: Tired, Langston Hughes 2015: Democracy, Langston Hughes 2014: Postscript, Seamus Heaney 2013: The Ghost of Frank O’Hara, John Yohe 2012: All Objects Reveal Something About the Body, Catie Rosemurgy 2011: Prayer, Marie Howe 2010: The Talker, Chelsea Rathburn 2009: There Are Many Theories About What Happened, John Gallagher 2008: bon bon il est un pays, Samuel Beckett 2007: Root root root for the home team, Bob Hicok 2006: Fever 103°, Sylvia Plath 2005: King Lear Considers What He’s Wrought, Melissa Kirsch

#summer #poetry #city life #nyc #poem #alex dimitrov

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magazineswire · 10 days

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Remembering King Von: A Legacy of Authenticity and Artistic Brilliance

In the realm of hip-hop, certain artists leave an indelible mark on the genre, not only with their music but also with their authenticity, storytelling, and raw talent. King Von, with his gritty lyrics, street narratives, and undeniable charisma, emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the world of rap. Though his life was tragically cut short, his impact on the music industry and his devoted fanbase endures as a testament to his artistic brilliance and uncompromising authenticity.

The Rise of a Street Poet:

Born Dayvon Daquan Bennett on August 9, 1994, in Chicago, Illinois, King Von's early life was marked by the harsh realities of street life. Growing up in the notorious O'Block neighborhood, he experienced firsthand the struggles, violence, and hardships that would later become the focal points of his music. Turning to rap as a means of self-expression and catharsis, King Von honed his craft with an authenticity and rawness that resonated deeply with listeners.

Authenticity in Artistry:

What set King Von apart from his contemporaries was his unwavering commitment to authenticity in his music. Drawing inspiration from his own experiences and the realities of street life, he painted vivid portraits of survival, betrayal, and redemption through his lyrics. His storytelling prowess and ability to capture the nuances of life in the inner city earned him widespread acclaim and a devoted following.

A Voice for the Streets:

King Von's music served as a voice for the streets, shedding light on the struggles and complexities of life in urban America. From his breakthrough mixtape, "Grandson, Vol. 1," to his acclaimed album, "Welcome to O'Block," he captivated audiences with his vivid storytelling and unfiltered honesty. Tracks like "Crazy Story" and "Took Her to the O" became anthems for a generation, cementing King Von's status as a rising star in the rap game.

Tragic Loss, Enduring Legacy:

On November 6, 2020, tragedy struck when King Von was fatally shot during a dispute outside a nightclub in Atlanta, Georgia. His untimely passing sent shockwaves through the hip-hop community, leaving fans and fellow artists mourning the loss of a true talent. Despite his premature departure, King Von's legacy lives on through his music, which continues to resonate with listeners around the world.

Honoring a Legend:

In the wake of his passing, tributes poured in from fans and fellow artists alike, honoring King Von's impact on the music industry and the lives he touched. From heartfelt social media posts to tribute songs and murals, his memory lives on as a reminder of the power of authenticity, storytelling, and artistic brilliance.

Conclusion:

Though King Von's life was tragically cut short, his legacy as a street poet and lyrical genius endures. Through his music, he immortalized the struggles and triumphs of life in the inner city, leaving behind a body of work that continues to inspire and resonate with listeners worldwide. As we remember King Von, we celebrate not only his artistic brilliance but also his unwavering commitment to authenticity and truth in a world often marked by illusion and artifice. Rest in power, King Von. Your voice lives on.

#King Von tattos #King Von wallpaper #King Von gif

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ippnoida · 18 days

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Independent publishers dominate Swansea shortlist

The shortlist for the world’s largest and most prestigious literary prize for young writers – the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize – has been revealed, featuring six emerging voices whose writing plays with formal inventiveness to explore the timeless themes of grief, identity and family.

Comprising of four novels, one short story collection and one poetry collection – with five titles belonging to independent publishers – this year’s international shortlist is:

A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò (Canongate Books) – novel (Nigeria)

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson (Viking, Penguin Random House UK) – novel (UK/Ghana)

The Glutton by AK Blakemore (Granta) – novel (England, UK)

Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan (Faber & Faber) – poetry collection (Hong Kong)

Local Fires by Joshua Jones (Parthian Books) – short story collection (Wales, UK)

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey (Granta) – novel (US)

Worth £20,000, this global accolade recognizes exceptional literary talent aged 39 or under, celebrating the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama. The prize is named after the Swansea-born writer Dylan Thomas and celebrates his 39 years of creativity and productivity. The prize invokes his memory to support the writers of today, nurture the talents of tomorrow, and celebrate international literary excellence.

Namita Gokhale, chair of Judges, said: “The Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize has an important role to play in recognizing, supporting and nurturing young writers across a rich diversity of locations and genres. The 2024 shortlist has authors from the United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Nigeria and Ghana, and it has been a truly rewarding adventure to immersively read through this creative spectrum of voices.”

The only debut on this year’s shortlist is the astonishing new Welsh talent Joshua Jones, who is in the running for his highly acclaimed short story collection Local Fires – a stunning series of multifaceted stories inspired by real people and real events that took place in his hometown of Llanelli, South Wales.

The sole poet in contention this year is Mary Jean Chan – who was previously shortlisted for the Prize with their debut Fleche in 2020 – and is now recognized for the collection Bright Fear, which fearlessly explores themes of identity, multilingualism and postcolonial legacy.

Three of the four novelists have also gained their second nomination for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize: British-Ghanaian author Caleb Azumah Nelson is in contention for his second novel, Small Worlds, in which he travels from South London to Ghana and back again over the course of three summers to tell an intimate father-son story exploring the worlds we build for ourselves; Nigerian novelist Ayòbámi Adébáyò is shortlisted for her dazzling story of modern Nigeria, A Spell of Good Things, and two families caught in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession and political corruption; and US author Catherine Lacey is celebrated for the genre-bending Biography of X, a roaring epic and ambitious novel chronicling the life, times and secrets of a notorious artist.

Completing the shortlist is British novelist AK Blakemore, recognized for her darkly exuberant novel The Glutton, which – set to the backdrop of Revolutionary France – is based on the true story of a peasant turned freakshow attraction.

The 2024 shortlist was selected by a judging panel chaired by writer and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival, Namita Gokhale, alongside author and lecturer in Creative Writing at Swansea University, Jon Gower, winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022 and Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin, Seán Hewitt, former BBC Gulf Correspondent and author of Telling Tales: An Oral History of Dubai, Julia Wheeler, and interdisciplinary artist and author of Keeping the House, Tice Cin.

The winner of the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2024 will be revealed at a ceremony held in Swansea on 16 May, following International Dylan Thomas Day on 14 May.

Previous winners include Arinze Ifeakandu, Patricia Lockwood, Max Porter, Raven Leilani, Bryan Washington, Guy Gunaratne, and Kayo Chingonyi.

#Dylan Thomas Prize

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xtruss · 28 days

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Why Did More Than 1,000 People Die After Police Subdued Them With Force That Isn’t Meant To Kill?

— In Partnership With: Associated Press (AP)

— March 28, 2024 | Frontline | NOBA — PBS

This combination of photos shows, top row from left, Anthony Timpa, Austin Hunter Turner, Carl Grant, Damien Alvarado, Delbert McNiel and Demetrio Jackson; second row from left, Drew Edwards, Evan Terhune, Giovani Berne, Glenn Ybanez, Ivan Gutzalenko and Mario Clark; bottom row from left, Michael Guillory, Robbin McNeely, Seth Lucas, Steven Bradley Beasley, Taylor Ware and Terrell "Al" Clark. Each died after separate encounters with police in which officers used force that is not supposed to be deadly. (AP Photo)

Carl Grant, a Vietnam veteran with dementia, wandered out of a hospital room to charge a cellphone he imagined he had. When he wouldn’t sit still, the police officer escorting Grant body-slammed him, ricocheting the patient’s head off the floor.

Taylor Ware, a former Marine and aspiring college student, walked the grassy grounds of an interstate rest stop trying to shake the voices in his head. After Ware ran from an officer, he was attacked by a police dog, jolted by a stun gun, pinned on the ground and injected with a sedative.

And Donald Ivy Jr., a former three-sport athlete, left an ATM alone one night when officers sized him up as suspicious and tried to detain him. Ivy took off, and police tackled and shocked him with a stun gun, belted him with batons and held him facedown.

Each man was unarmed. Each was not a threat to public safety. And despite that, each died after police used a kind of force that is not supposed to be deadly — and can be much easier to hide than the blast of an officer’s gun.

Every day, police rely on common tactics that, unlike guns, are meant to stop people without killing them, such as physical holds, Tasers and body blows. But when misused, these tactics can still end in death — as happened with George Floyd in 2020, sparking a national reckoning over policing. And while that encounter was caught on video, capturing Floyd’s last words of “I can’t breathe,” many others throughout the United States have escaped notice.

Over a decade, more than 1,000 people died after police subdued them through means not intended to be lethal, an investigation led by The Associated Press found. In hundreds of cases, officers weren’t taught or didn’t follow best safety practices for physical force and weapons, creating a recipe for death.

This story is part of an ongoing investigation led by The Associated Press in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs and FRONTLINE (PBS). The investigation includes the Lethal Restraint interactive story, database and the documentary, Documenting Police Use Of Force, premiering April 30 on PBS.

These sorts of deadly encounters happened just about everywhere, according to an analysis of a database AP created. Big cities, suburbs and rural America. Red states and blue states. Restaurants, assisted-living centers and, most commonly, in or near the homes of those who died. The deceased came from all walks of life — a poet, a nurse, a saxophone player in a mariachi band, a truck driver, a sales director, a rodeo clown and even a few off-duty law enforcement officers.

Explore: Lethal Restraint

The toll, however, disproportionately fell on Black Americans like Grant and Ivy. Black people made up a third of those who died despite representing only 12% of the U.S. population. Others feeling the brunt were impaired by a medical, mental health or drug emergency, a group particularly susceptible to force even when lightly applied.

“We were robbed,” said Carl Grant’s sister, Kathy Jenkins, whose anger has not subsided four years later. “It’s like somebody went in your house and just took something, and you were violated.”

AP’s three-year investigation was done in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs at the University of Maryland and Arizona State University, and FRONTLINE (PBS). The AP and its partners focused on local police, sheriff’s deputies and other officers patrolling the streets or responding to dispatch calls. Reporters filed nearly 7,000 requests for government documents and body-camera footage, receiving more than 700 autopsy reports or death certificates, and uncovering video in at least four dozen cases that has never been published or widely distributed.

Medical officials cited law enforcement as causing or contributing to about half of the deaths. In many others, significant police force went unmentioned and drugs or preexisting health conditions were blamed instead.

Video in a few dozen cases showed some officers mocked people as they died, laughing or making comments such as “sweaty little hog,” “screaming like a little girl” and “lazy f—.” In other cases, officers expressed clear concern for the people they were subduing.

The federal government has struggled for years to count deaths following what police call “less-lethal force,” and the little information it collects is often kept from the public and highly incomplete at best. No more than a third of the cases the AP identified are listed in federal mortality data as involving law enforcement at all.

When force came, it could be sudden and extreme, the AP investigation found. Other times, the force was minimal, and yet the people nevertheless died, sometimes from a drug overdose or a combination of factors.

In about 30% of the cases, police were intervening to stop people who were injuring others or who posed a threat of danger. But roughly 25% of those who died were not harming anyone or, at most, were committing low-level infractions or causing minor disturbances, AP’s review of cases shows. The rest involved other nonviolent situations with people who, police said, were trying to resist arrest or flee.

A Texas man loitering outside a convenience store who resisted going to jail was shocked up to 11 times with a Taser and restrained facedown for nearly 22 minutes — more than twice as long as George Floyd, previously unreported video shows. After a California man turned silent during questioning, he was grabbed, dogpiled by seven officers, shocked five times with a Taser, wrapped in a restraint contraption and injected with a sedative by a medic despite complaining “I can’t breathe.” And a Michigan teen was speeding an all-terrain vehicle down a city street when a state trooper sent volts of excruciating electricity from a Taser through him, and he crashed.

In hundreds of cases, officers repeated errors that experts and trainers have spent years trying to eliminate — perhaps none more prevalent than how they held someone facedown in what is known as prone restraint.

Many policing experts agree that someone can stop breathing if pinned on their chest for too long or with too much weight, and the Department of Justice has issued warnings to that effect since 1995. But with no standard national rules, what police are taught is often left to the states and individual departments. In dozens of cases, officers disregarded people who told them they were struggling for air or even about to die, often uttering the words, “I can’t breathe.”

What followed deadly encounters revealed how the broader justice system frequently works to shield police from scrutiny, often leaving families to grieve without knowing what really happened.

Officers were usually cleared by their departments in internal investigations. Some had a history of violence and a few were involved in multiple restraint deaths. Local and state authorities that investigate deaths also withheld information and in some cases omitted potentially damaging details from reports.

One of the last hopes for accountability from inside the system — what are known as death opinions — also often exonerated officers. The medical examiners and coroners who decide on these did not link hundreds of the deaths to force, but instead to accidents, drug use or preexisting health problems, sometimes relying on debunked science or incomplete studies from sources tied to law enforcement.

Even when these deaths receive the homicide label that fatal police shootings often get, prosecutors rarely pursue officers. Charging police is politically sensitive and can be legally fraught, and the AP investigation identified just 28 deaths that led to such charges. Finding accountability through civil courts was also tough for families, but at least 168 cases ended in settlements or jury verdicts totaling about $374 million.

The known fatalities still averaged just two a week — a tiny fraction of the total contacts police have with the population. Police leaders, officers and experts say law enforcement shouldn’t bear all the blame. As the social safety net frays, people under mental distress or who use stimulant drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine are increasingly on the streets. Officers sent to handle these emergencies are often poorly trained by their departments.

If incidents turn chaotic and officers make split-second decisions to use force, “people do die,” said Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former Baltimore police officer.

“The only way to get down to zero is to get rid of policing,” Moskos said, “and that’s not going to save lives either.”

But because the United States has no clear idea how many people die like this and why, holding police accountable and making meaningful reforms will remain difficult, said Dr. Roger Mitchell Jr., a leader in the push to improve tracking and one of the nation’s few Black chief medical examiners when he held the office in Washington, D.C., from 2014 to 2021.

“Any time anyone dies before their day in court, or dies in an environment where the federal government or the local government’s job is to take care of you,” he said, “it needs transparency. It cannot be in the dark of night.”

“This,” he added, “is an American problem we need to solve.”

Those Who Died

Carl Grant didn’t care much for football. So on Super Bowl Sunday in 2020, family members said, he eased into his black Kia Optima, intending to shop for groceries near his suburban Atlanta home. The 68-year-old wound up 2½ hours away, where he came face to face with police in an encounter that underscores several findings central to AP’s investigation: He was Black, he was not threatening physical harm, and a seemingly routine matter rapidly escalated.

The former Marine and trucking business owner had dementia and qualified as a disabled veteran. As he drove that evening, he became disoriented and took an interstate west to Birmingham, Alabama. There, Grant twice tried to go inside houses he thought were his.

In the family photo on the left, Carl Grant prepares to cook in the home he shared with his partner, Ronda Hernandez, in Redlands, Calif., circa 2000. The family photo on the right shows Carl Grant and his partner, Ronda Hernandez, and her children, Michael and Michelle, in a friend’s backyard in California in the mid-1990s. (Family Photo via AP; Ronda Hernandez via AP)

Both times, residents phoned 911. And both times, responding officers opted to use force.

At the first house, Grant was taken to the ground and cuffed after an officer said he’d stepped toward a partner. Even though one officer sensed he was impaired, police released Grant without asking medics to examine him — a decision a superior later faulted.

At a second house about a half-mile away, police found him sitting in a porch chair. When he didn’t follow an order to get off the porch, a different officer pushed him down the stairs, according to previously unreleased body-camera video. Grant gashed his forehead in the fall.

Officer Vincent Larry, who pushed Grant, went with him to the hospital. When Grant wouldn’t return to his exam room, Larry used an unapproved “hip toss” to lift and slam him, hospital surveillance video showed. The back of Grant’s head bounced four inches off the floor, a nurse estimated, wrecking his spinal cord in his neck.

After Grant awoke from emergency surgery, he thought his paralysis was a combat injury from the Vietnam War. “I’m so sorry this happened,” he told family, his sister recalled. He died almost six months later from the injury.

An internal investigation concluded Larry’s force at the hospital was excessive, and in a departure from many other cases AP found, his department acted: he received a 15-day suspension. He is no longer a city employee, a Birmingham spokesperson told AP. Neither Larry nor the department would comment. A judge recently cited a procedural error in dismissing a lawsuit filed by Grant’s estate, which is appealing the ruling.

“He’s almost 70 and confused,” Grant’s partner, Ronda Hernandez, said. “That’s what I don’t get. You just don’t do that to old people.”

Grant was one of 1,036 deaths from 2012 through 2021 that AP logged. That is certainly an undercount, because many departments blocked access to information. Files that others released were blacked out and video blurred, while officers routinely used vague language in their reports that glossed over force.

All but 3% of the dead were men. They tended to be in their 30s and 40s, when police might consider them more of a physical threat. The youngest was just 15, the oldest 95.

In sheer numbers, white people of non-Hispanic descent were the largest group, making up more than 40% of cases. Hispanics were just under 20% of those killed. But Black Americans were hit especially hard.

The disproportionate representation of Black people tracks research findings that they face higher rates and severity of force, and even deaths. The Department of Justice has found after multiple investigations that Black people accounted for more unjustified stops for minor offenses, illegal searches that produced no contraband, unnecessary force, or arrests without probable cause.

Researchers caution that proving — or disproving — discrimination can be hard because of a lack of information. But in some cases AP identified, officers were accused of profiling and stopping Black people based on suspicions, as happened to Donald “Dontay” Ivy Jr.

A demonstrator holds a sign in support of Donald "Dontay" Ivy during a rally outside Albany District Attorney David Soares' office in Albany, N.Y., on Monday, Aug. 10, 2015. Ivy was cooperative when police stopped him, but, they said, he wouldn’t answer how much money he had withdrawn from an ATM and denied a prior arrest. Police interpreted Ivy’s behavior as deceptive. What they didn’t grasp was that Ivy suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. After an officer touched Ivy to detain him, Ivy fled. Officers caught up and beat him with batons, shocked him several times with a Taser, put him facedown and got on top of him.

A demonstrator holds a sign in support of Donald “Dontay” Ivy Jr. during a rally outside Albany District Attorney David Soares’ office in Albany, N.Y., on Monday, Aug. 10, 2015. (Will Waldron/The Albany Times Union via AP)

Ivy was a 39-year-old resident of Albany, New York, who excelled in basketball during high school, served in the U.S. Navy and graduated college with a business degree. On a freezing night in 2015, he went to an ATM to check whether a delayed disability deposit had posted. Officers thought he seemed suspicious because he was walking with a lean and only one hand in the pocket of his “puffer” coat — indications, they thought, he might have a gun or drugs.

Ivy was cooperative when they stopped him, but, they said, he wouldn’t answer how much money he had withdrawn and denied a prior arrest. Police interpreted Ivy’s behavior as deceptive without grasping that Ivy suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. A witness recounted that Ivy seemed “slow” when he spoke.

When an officer touched Ivy to detain him — a known trigger for some with severe mental illness — police say Ivy began to resist. An officer fired a Taser, then Ivy fled. Officers caught up and beat him with batons, shocked him several more times with a Taser, put him facedown and got on top of him. By the time they rolled Ivy over, he’d stopped breathing.

The department quickly ruled that the officers acted appropriately and blamed a “medical crisis” for his death, even though it was classified a homicide. A grand jury declined to indict. However, the local prosecutor urged police to review policies for Tasers, batons and dealing with people with mental illness.

The local chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union continued to question the stop, saying there was “strong reason to suspect” Ivy was racially profiled. After years in court, the city paid $625,000 to settle with Ivy’s estate. His cousin and close friend Chamberlain Guthrie said the way Ivy’s life ended was one of the most painful things his family had endured.

“It’d be one thing if Dontay was out here being a ruffian and he was a thug,” Guthrie said. “But he was none of that.”

When Force Goes Wrong

When people died after police subdued them, it was often because officers went too fast, too hard or for too long — many times, all of the above.

The United States has no national rules for how exactly to apply force. Instead, Supreme Court decisions set broad guard rails that weigh force as either “objectively reasonable” or “excessive,” based in part on the severity of the situation, any immediate safety threat and active resistance.

That frequently leaves states and local law enforcement to sort out the particulars in training and policies. Best practices from the government and private law enforcement organizations have tried to fill gaps, but aren’t mandatory and sometimes go ignored, as happened in hundreds of cases reviewed by AP and its partners.

Tom Ware holds photos of his son, Taylor Ware, on his phone in Kansas City, Mo., Tuesday, June 6, 2023. The aspiring college student and former Marine died after a violent encounter with police during a manic episode caused by bipolar disorder. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

In 2019, the mother of Taylor Ware, the former Marine with college plans, called 911 when he wouldn’t get back in their SUV during a manic episode caused by bipolar disorder. She told the dispatcher Ware would need space and urged police to wait for backup because he was a former wrestler and might be a handful — advice that tracked best practices, yet wasn’t followed.

The first officer to encounter Ware at a highway rest stop in Indiana saw the 24-year-old extending him a hand in greeting. Ware then calmly walked through a grassy field and sat down with folded legs.

The officer, an unpaid reserve marshal, assured Ware’s mother he’d had calls like this before. As she and a family friend watched, he stopped about 10 feet in front of Ware, according to video filmed by the friend and obtained by AP. His police dog barked and lunged several times — a provocation officers are told to avoid with the emotionally distressed. Ware remained seated.

After a few minutes, Ware walked toward the parking lot. There, the officer said, Ware pushed him away, a split-second act disputed by the friend. Her video shows Ware running and the officer commanding the dog to attack, setting off a cascade of force that ended with Ware in a coma. He died three days later.

In the left-hand image from video provided by a family friend, Taylor Ware, left, sits in a field approached by a police officer and canine at a highway rest stop in Dale, Ind., on August 25, 2019. In the right-hand image, Ware is restrained by law enforcement and emergency medical personnel. (Pauline Engel via AP)

A police news release said Ware had a “medical event,” an explanation that echoes how police first described George Floyd’s death. The prosecutor in Indiana declined to bring charges and praised officers for “incredible patience and restraint.” His office’s letter brushed past or left out key details: multiple dog bites, multiple stun-gun shocks, prone restraint and an injection of the powerful sedative ketamine.

In dozens of other cases identified by AP, people who died were given sedatives without consent, sometimes after officers urged paramedics to use them — a recommendation law enforcement is unqualified to make.

A coroner ruled Ware’s death was due to natural causes, specifically “excited delirium” — a term for a condition that police say causes potentially life-threatening agitation, rapid heart rate and other symptoms. Major medical groups oppose it as a diagnosis, however, and say it is frequently an attempt to justify excessive force.

“It was like that was his body’s own fault, that it wasn’t the police’s fault,” Ware’s sister, Briana Garton, said of the autopsy ruling.

Two experts who reviewed the case for the AP said police actions — such as the order for the dog to attack, the use of a Taser in the sternum and restraint facedown with handcuffs and back pressure — contributed to Ware’s death.

“This was not proper service,” said police practices expert Stan Kephart, himself a former chief. “This person should be alive today.”

As with Ware, officers resorted to force in roughly 25% of the cases even though the circumstances weren’t imminently dangerous. Many began as routine calls that other officers have, time and again, resolved safely. Those included medical emergencies phoned in by families, friends or the person who died.

By launching prematurely into force, police introduced violence and volatility, and in turn needed to use more weapons, holds or restraints to regain control — a phenomenon known as “officer-created jeopardy.” Sometimes it starts when police misread as defiance someone’s confusion, intoxication or inability to communicate due to a medical issue.

What led up to the force was sometimes unclear. In more than 100 cases, police either withheld key details or witnesses disputed the officer’s account — and body-camera footage didn’t exist to add clarity. But in about 45% of cases, officers became physical after they said someone tried to evade them or resist arrest for nonviolent circumstances. Some sprinted away with drugs, for example, or simply flailed their arms to resist handcuffs or wiggled around while held down.

Many times the way officers subdued people broke policing best practices, especially when using the go-to tools of restraining people facedown and shocking them with Tasers.

When done properly, placing someone on their stomach or shocking them is not inherently life-threatening. But there are risks: Prone restraint can compress the lungs and put stress on the heart, and Taser’s maker has issued warnings against repeated shocks or targeting the body near the heart. These risks intensify when safety protocols aren’t followed or when people with mental illness, the elderly or those on stimulant drugs are involved.

Some officers involved in fatalities testified they had been assured that prone position was never deadly, AP found, while many others were trained to roll people onto their sides to aid breathing and simply failed to do so.

“If you’re talking, you’re breathing, bro,” an officer, repeating a common myth about prone restraint, told a Florida man following 12 shocks from stun guns.

“Stomach is (an) ideal place for them to be. It’s harder for them to punch me,” testified an officer in the death of a Minnesota man found sleeping at a grocery store and restrained for more than 30 minutes.

In dozens of police or witness videos, those who died began to fade on screen, their breathing becoming shallow, as happened in suburban San Diego to 56-year-old Oral Nunis.

Nunis was having a mental break at his daughter’s apartment in 2020. He had calmed down, but then the first arriving officer grabbed his arm, a mere four seconds after making eye contact. Nunis begged to go without being handcuffed. The officer persisted. Nunis became agitated and ran outside.

At 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 146 pounds, Nunis quickly found himself pinned by several officers — each at least 80 pounds heavier than him. Although his body turned still, they kept pressing, wrapped him in a full-body restraint device and put a spit mask on him. From just 10 feet away, his daughter tried to console him in his final minutes: “Daddy, just breathe.”

In the left-hand image from Chula Vista Police Department body-camera video, an officer approaches Oral Nunis, 56, with handcuffs. In the right-hand image, officers restrain Nunis after he ran out of his daughter’s California apartment in 2020. (Chula Vista Police Department via AP)

The district attorney’s office later cleared the police, calling their force reasonable because Nunis had posed “unnaturally strong resistance” for his size.

As part of the family’s lawsuit, two pathologists concluded that the restraint officers used led to his death. One officer was asked under oath if pressure on someone’s back could impair breathing. “I have had several bodies on top of me during different training scenarios,” the 6-foot, 265-pound officer said, “and I never had difficulty breathing.”

The use of Tasers can be similarly misinformed. An officer shocked Stanley Downen, 77, a former ironworker with Alzheimer’s disease who served during the Korean War, as he wandered the grounds of his veterans’ home in Columbia Falls, Montana. The electricity locked up his body and made him fall without control of his limbs. He hit his head on the pavement and later died.

The officer said under oath that he hadn’t read any warnings, including those from Taser manufacturer Axon Enterprise Inc., about the risks of shocking the elderly or people who could be injured if they fell. He testified that Downen was “armed with rocks,” but a witness told police Downen never raised his hands to throw them. The police chief cleared the officer, though a police expert hired by the family found he failed to follow accepted practices.

In about 30% of deaths that AP logged, civilians and officers faced potential or clear danger, extenuating circumstances that meant police didn’t always follow best practices. In about 170 of those cases, officers said a person charged, swung or lunged at them, or police arrived to find people holding someone down after a fight. In the other roughly 110 cases, police were trying to stop violent attacks against others, including officers.

There was a Kansas man who used his elderly mother as a shield when deputies arrived. And there was a 41-year-old concrete mason in Minnesota who choked and punched his adult daughter before grabbing an officer by the throat and pushing her into a window.

In one of the most violent encounters, three officers in Cohasset, Massachusetts, confronted Erich Stelzer, a 6-foot-6-inch bodybuilder who was stabbing his date so viciously that the walls were red with her blood.

In this photo provided by the Cohasset Police Department, Maegan Ball, second right, stands with, from left, Officer Aaron Bates, Officer Alexander Stotik, and Detective Lt. Gregory Lennon in Cohasset, Mass., on Dec. 27, 2019. (Cohasset Police Department via AP)

Rather than fire their pistols that night in 2018, two of the officers used their Tasers and managed to handcuff Stelzer, 25, as he thrashed on the floor. Stelzer stopped breathing, and the officers could not revive him. The local prosecutor determined they had handled the situation appropriately and would have been justified in shooting Stelzer because he presented a lethal threat.

While the officers were relieved to have saved the woman’s life, they also wrestled with killing a man despite doing their best to avoid it.

“As the time went by after the incident, you know, it wasn’t lost on me that he was someone’s son, someone’s brother,” Detective Lt. Gregory Lennon said. “And I’m sorry that he died. You know, it wasn’t our intention.”

Lack of Accountability

Understanding how and why people die after force can be difficult. Information is often scarce or government at all levels won’t share what it has.

In 2000, Congress started trying to get the Justice Department to track deaths involving law enforcement. The department has acknowledged its data is incomplete, blames spotty reporting from police departments, and does not make whatever information exists publicly available.

Mortality data maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has gaps. The AP found that when a death certificate does not list words like “police” and “law enforcement,” the CDC’s language-reading software doesn’t label the death as involving “legal intervention.” This means the death data flagged police involvement in, at most, 34% of the more than 1,000 deaths the investigation identified.

Among the mislabeled deaths is that of Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Black man. He died in 2020 while restrained and covered with a spit hood in Rochester, New York. The high-profile incident was caught on video, but while his death certificate noted “physical restraint,” it made no direct mention of police.

The CDC recognizes the data undercounts police-involved deaths, but says it wasn’t primarily intended to flag them. Staff lack the time or resources to corroborate death certificate details, officials said.

In 2017, leading pathologists recommended adding a checkbox to the U.S. standard death certificate to identify deaths involving law enforcement — as is already done with tobacco use and pregnancy. They argued better data could help inform better practices and prevent deaths. However, the proposal hasn’t gained traction.

“This is a long-standing, not-very-secret secret about the problem here: We know very little,” said Georgetown University law professor Christy Lopez, who until 2017 led the Justice Department office that investigates law enforcement agencies over excessive force.

Meanwhile, laws in states like Pennsylvania, Alabama and Delaware block the release of most, if not all, information. And in other places, such as Iowa, departments can choose what they wish to release, even to family members like Sandra Jones.

Jones’ husband, Brian Hays, 56, had battled an addiction to painkillers since injuring his shoulder at a factory job. She last saw him alive one September night in 2015 after he called 911 because his mental health and methamphetamine use was making him delusional. Officers who arrived at their home in Muscatine, Iowa, ordered her to leave.

The next morning, a hospital contacted Jones to say Hays was there. As Hays was on life support, doctors told her that he had several Taser marks on his body and scrapes on his face and knees, she recalled. Neighbors also said they had seen Hays run out of the house, clad only in boxer shorts, and make it around the corner before officers caught him.

When Jones set out to unravel what happened, she said, police wouldn’t hand over their reports. A detective later told her officers had shocked Hays and tied his feet before he went into cardiac arrest. She couldn’t glean why that much force was necessary.

In time, Jones managed to get the autopsy report from the medical examiner’s office, confirming the force and a struggle. But an attorney told her winning a lawsuit to pry out more information was unlikely. Hays’ death didn’t even make the local news.

“All I know is, something terrible happened that night,” she said. “I have pictured him laying on that cement road more times than I can tell you. I picture him there, struggling to breathe.”

This Is How Reporters Documented 1,000 Deaths After Police Force That Isn’t Supposed To Be Fatal! Some of the documents obtained during the Lethal Restraint investigation by The Associated Press in collaboration with the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism and FRONTLINE (PBS) are photographed in New York on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)

— Reese Dunklin, Investigative Reporter, The Associated Press

— Ryan J. Foley, Reporter, The Associated Press

— Jeff Martin, Breaking News Reporter, The Associated Press

— Jennifer McDermott, Reporter, The Associated Press

— Holbrook Mohr, National Investigative Reporter, The Associated Press

— John Seewer, Reporter, The Associated Press

#Frontline #NOVA | PBS #Police Brutality #Use of Prohibited 🚫 Excessive Force #Associated Press (AP)

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