Small Lights: On Poems, Coming-to-consciousness and Conscience

The essay re-arranges elements of three online conversations between the authors in May-June 2022. Throughout these conversations the authors explored themes around the poetics of dissent, oppositional consciousness, dissidence, and poetry of witness, in relation to the process of coming-to-consciousness. The essay translates the resonant, non-linear dynamic of the conversations into writing, and arranges the content in six central sections: Stepping Out, Immersions and Accompaniments, Countering Acquiescence, Being Present, Extremity, and Dissidence. Each section is introduced first by a quote by Forché, then by a brief reflection and conceptualization by Gräbner, and a key term then introduces each train of thought. The themes emerge within a poetic, conceptual and political reflection on consciousness and conscience.