David Wojnarowicz
Born
in Red Bank, NJ, The United States
September 14, 1954
Died
July 22, 1992
Website
Genre
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Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration
16 editions
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published
1991
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The Waterfront Journals
14 editions
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published
1996
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7 Miles a Second
by
7 editions
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published
1996
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Weight of the Earth: The Tape Journals of David Wojnarowicz
by
2 editions
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published
2018
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Memories That Smell Like Gasoline
10 editions
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published
1992
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In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz
by
13 editions
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published
1998
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Brush Fires in the Social Landscape
9 editions
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published
2000
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Fever: The Art of David Wojnarowicz (New Museum Books, 2)
by
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published
1998
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David Wojnarowicz: In the Shadow of Forward Motion
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Dear Jean Pierre
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published
2023
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“When I put my hands on your body on your flesh I feel the history of that body. Not just the beginning of its forming in that distant lake but all the way beyond its ending. I feel the warmth and texture and simultaneously I see the flesh unwrap from the layers of fat and disappear. I see the fat disappear from the muscle. I see the muscle disappearing from around the organs and detaching iself from the bones. I see the organs gradually fade into transparency leaving a gleaming skeleton gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust. I am consumed in the sense of your weight, the way your flesh occupies momentary space the fullness of it beneath my palms. I am amazed at how perfectly your body fits to the curves of my hands. If I could attach our blood vessels so we could become each other I would. If I could attach our blood vessels in order to anchor you to the earth to this present time I would. If I could open up your body and slip inside your skin and look out your eyes and forever have my lips fused with yours I would. It makes me weep to feel the history of your flesh beneath my hands in a time of so much loss. It makes me weep to feel the movement of your flesh beneath my palms as you twist and turn over to one side to create a series of gestures to reach up around my neck to draw me nearer. All these memories will be lost in time like tears in the rain.”
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“Transition is always a relief. Destination means death to me. If I could figure out a way to remain forever in transition, in the disconnected and unfamiliar, I could remain in a state of perpetual freedom.”
― Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration
― Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration
“I want to throw up because we're supposed to quietly and politely make house in this killing machine called America and pay taxes to support our own slow murder and I'm amazed we're not running amok in the streets, and that we can still be capable of gestures of loving after lifetimes of all this.”
― Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration
― Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration
Topics Mentioning This Author
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