"When asked the underlying meaning of the term
bocio, Sagbaju noted that "this art form is like a man who does not
open his mouth because he is dead." In other words, like a cadaver,
bocio address at once the world of the living and the dead. Each such
work can be said to represent "death living a human life" (Kojève, in
Bataille 1990:10)."
- Suzanne Preston Blier, "African Vodun: Art,
Psychology, and Power", University of Chicago Press 1996
"When we say that someone is "speechless" we do not mean that they have nothing to say. On the contrary, such speechlessness is really a kind of speech. In German the word Stumm (mute) is connected with the word stammeln (to stutter or stammer). Surely the distress of the stutterer does not lie in the fact that he has nothing to say. Rather, he wants to say too much and is unable to find the words to express the pressing wealth of things he has on his mind. Similarly, when we say that someone is struck dumb or speechless (verstummt), we do not simply mean that he has ceased to speak. When we are at a loss for words in this way, what we want to say is actually brought especially close to us as something for which we have to seek new words."
- Suzanne Preston Blier, "African Vodun: Art,
Psychology, and Power", University of Chicago Press 1996
This is the foundation of all true poetry.
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