semiotic incoherence that would be a muteness, a darkness, and a pre-
linguistic silence. Berkeleyís poems can only allude to this absence
that cannot be written with the effect of challenging the rationale of
representation, and this has both political and ethical repercussions.
Berkeleyís nomadic writing longs for areas of silence, inbetween
the official cacophonies, in a flirt with radical nonbelonging and
outsidedness.^64 Her writing strategy connects with Deleuze and
Guattari who in no way privilege the sovereign subject, the independ-
ent ëotherí, or the bonds of communication and representation
between them. Their interest is in the ëpartial objectsí and processes
that show no respect for the autonomy of the subject.^65 As Margrit
Shildrick notices in Leaky Bodies and Boundaries (1997):
The whole point of appropriating postmodern critical theories for a feminist
ethics is to uncover the way in which values are constructed, not in order to
deny the possibility of value, but in order to suggest new configurations that no
longer function on the basis of exclusion.^66This drive towards nomadic subjectivity is not necessarily a dissolving
of identity but a way of freeing up constricting versions of identity
that have been linked with colonialism, nationalism and patriarchy. To
use Levinasís terms, this is to find ways of knowing that do not rely
on the sovereignty and self presence of the subject and the denial of
alterity. Berkeleyís poetry also presents the subject in process
whereby knowledge, autonomy, the bonds of communication and
representation between subjectivities are called into question. The
poems in Facts About Water do not grasp, do not take possession but
take excursions as the poetry requires that one leaves the realms of the
known, and takes oneself where one does not expect, is not expected
to be.^67
The movement of Berkeleyís poetry oscillates between finding a
singular foundation for identity (the facts) and dissolution (the water).
Sitting as ëthe girl on the wallí she plumps for neither side of the line
64 Cf. Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects, p.16.
65 Cf. Elizabeth Grosz, ‘A Thousand Tiny Sexes’, Gilles Deleuze and the Theatre
of Philosophy, p.197.
66 Shildrick, Leaky Bodies and Boundaries, p.139.
67 Cf. Braidotti, Patterns of Dissonance, p.26.