Fil Lewitt

Archeopoetics Fil Lewitt

The question: How many universal human cultural activities have been around since the Stone Age? I came up with tool-making and tool use; story-telling, music, musical instruments, dance, song, and poetry; religion; ceremonies for birth, puberty, marriage, death, burial. Maybe you can think of a few more, but there aren't many. All of these activities, which began in the Stone Age, except poetry, have been written about and explored thoroughly. The entire book is illustrated with drawings and photographs. The first half of ARCHEOPOETICS is an introduction to, and a varied explanation of, this new synthesis as a useful subject. There's lots of information about human prehistory and the Stone Age from many different sources. The second half moves to modern and contemporary uses of ARCHEOPOETICS and includes essays, poems by the author and others, and stories about our past, present, and future. Everything in this book relates to the main subject, and its variety shows its usefulness. Why do we all have poetry? Where did it come from? What is its use? For it is, and has been, in fact, universal for at least 50,000 years, maybe quite a bit longer. ARCHEOPOETICS is my illustrated introduction to this synthesis, this syncretic and speculative subject. It took me almost 70 years of study and writing, begun by reading an article on Neanderthal people in the National Geographic when I was seven. The purpose of this book is first of all pleasure for the reader: it's not a test or an academic subject, but it does open possibilities and maybe even can shed a shaft of light on who we are, and why we are that way and where we're going.