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# When Little Doughy Men Play Victim
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/anthony-hawley-when-little-doughy-men-play-victim/
- Published: 2018-10-06T14:00:36.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:09:38.000Z
- Description: I am hopelessly optimistic, but it takes work.
- Author: Anthony Hawley
- Tags: Art, Drawing, Weekend, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-18 14:37 (2018)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/10/img006.jpg)

Anthony Hawley, “Dear Ghostesses (Ghawdex)” (2018), ink on archival inkjet print, 7.25 x 5.25 inches (image courtesy the artist)

**It Is a Good Time to Think**

Lately I’ve been reminded  
Americans are very good  
at talking about what  
we think  
is inside of us and  
what we  
think is not,  
also good at  
talking about what we think should  
stay outside what  
should stay away as well as  
what we think has to  
remain beyond  
the perimeter of our  
exhausting subjectivity  
So many vast  
bags of men very  
good at saying  
what they say they  
know & don’t & what  
we know & don’t &  
what is what  
that’s  
the thing  
Americans hold —  
it’s not my  
fault it’s never  
my fault it’s  
amazing how we get  
caught in this  
echo this echo  
becomes an  
anthem did you  
hear it this  
week it was so very  
loud a little whimpering  
shape  
of a little doughy  
man playing  
victim? Since  
when  
did this become  
the sound of American  
freedom?

+

it is a good time to think  
it is a good time to think  
in between

writing and art and what lives  
in between  
those folds and zones  
places we have to start  
living if we are to take  
living to other kinds of  
ecologies do you think we  
can? I am hopelessly  
optimistic it takes work but why  
not work work work work  
work a container is just  
a place a shape a drift  
a draft our agency is in the re-  
shaping a spider goes  
on so do  
pixels and what are we  
to build if not inter-  
twinings  
covert is  
a word so is ensemble  
it’s important to be  
against everything please  
continue but just as  
valuable uncover some  
other alphabets  
might carry us  
out  
I think it’s  
possible maybe let’s  
find other  
anthems