a dark unacceptable

Add to that list the poet who
rambles on in stolen dark    a
dark prepared in stark solemnity

a dark unacceptable to the lavish
word    the poem struggles to
breathe    it crosses over and

touches void    and here it
speaks attaches belongs    the
proverbial becoming adversary
—

We live of course in a world not only of commodities but also of representation, and representations—their production, circulation, history, and interpretation—are the very element of culture. In much recent theory the problem of representation is deemed to be central, yet rarely is it put in its full political context, a context that is primarily imperial. Instead we have on the one hand an isolated cultural sphere, believed to be freely and unconditionally available to weightless theoretical speculation and investigation, and, on the other, a debased political sphere, where the real struggle between interests is supposed to occur. To the professional student of culture—the humanist, the critic, the scholar—only one sphere is relevant, and, more to the point, it is accepted that the two spheres are separated, whereas the two are not only connected but ultimately the same.

– Edward Said, “Culture and Imperialism”