Nicely done James. Complex and compelling ideas (and metrical precision, as usual). I've never asked, but I'm a little curious about why you never use punctuation. Prefer the flexibility/ambiguity?
Thanks, J, and I'm glad you asked because now I get to share this John Clare quote:
"I am generally understood tho I do not use that awkward squad of pointings called colons and semicolons for the very reason that altho they are drilled hourly, daily and weekly by every boarding school Miss who pretends to gossip in correspondence, they do not know their proper exercise for they even set grammarians at loggerheads and no one can assign them their proper places."
I don't know if I'd go that far, but for me, I suppose it's a question of what it is I'm posting: am I sharing written work, or writing down something that was meant to be listened to? I'd rather have the words on the page come first—seems more abstract and safer somehow, especially since the sound of my own voice is irritating to me—but honestly, I think it's important that voice now come before the page. Books are great in that they allow Byron and Keats to communicate to me directly, but only because that's better than nothing. Far better it would be to sit by the fire and hear from them in-person.
Today, there are so many ways for us to abstract out human experience with technology, so I'd like to reverse that trend wherever possible; get toward something more at-hand and personal. That's why I see the listening as coming first, with the writing just a record of that transmission. Because of that, punctuation tends to be a bit of an afterthought.
This is so interesting. I think you have a philosophy of poetry unlike anyone else I've ever met. In my experience, lots of writers--both folks I've met and reading writer's bios throughout history--tend to be the "loner in a room, prefer the written word over all human contact" type, so I appreciate how deeply your approach to art is grounded in community. (Though I wouldn't say that reading--or punctuation--are just substitutes for human conversation.) Yesterday I finished Ben Palpant's book of interviews with various poets, and the Malcolm Guite one would be up your alley! He had a quote where he said: "The idea of the lonely, romantic genius in his weird, peculiar place whom everyone has to make allowances for leads to this kind of confessional poetry which gets worse and worse and more and more obscure. What does it amount to? Another strange little adventure in the world of me. I don't buy that at all. No, I want to be the bard of a tribe, to tell the great, collective stories that bind us together--but, of course, I tell them as they've happened to me." Made me think of some of the stuff you've shared on here.
Thank you, I really appreciate that! And yes, I love that Malcolm Guite quote. I'm along his line of thinking in quite a few ways.
I think the community aspect comes out of necessity. Guite's "great, collective stories" used to be so important, they saved lives in the winter months. We have central heating and grocery stores now, of course, but—just me speaking here—our culture is drying up. We live in a society that seems trapped in what Iain McGilchrist might call a left-hemisphere reality. (I see this a lot through my day job and it's a dismal, claustrophobic place to get stuck in.) We need more "people of the skin bag" as the Irish might say to re-cultivate ourselves. Sure, writing requires withdrawal, but I think an important second step is rejoining the community to share what we've found before we venture back out again.
Loved to read this conversation and the bit by Olivia below as well. I wanted to mention that in my own writing I also think about the sounds being made of the poem being spoken. However, this makes me in some ways more precious about the punctuation as I want it to be spoken and sound a certain way (visually represent with enjambments too, etc). Sometimes I hear a poet read their work and I get confused as they read it 'straight'. I'm new to the game so we'll see how that develops in my work and what I read/listen to. I really appreciate your page as one of the only ones that puts audio content along with your writing.
That makes sense, too; both are deliberate choices that I believe make sense, depending on what we intend. And thanks very much, I do appreciate that. As I mentioned, I'm not the biggest fan of the sound of my own voice, but it's something I'm working on and I think it's a good thing to try to use it.
Most people aren't fans of their own sound - our inner ears are strange filters. For what it's worth neither your voice nor mine are as good as Geoffrey Hill (his lectures are good just for the awe of his timbre), but I think yours is very fine!
As a Scandinavian, this was a fun read. The poem was engagingly mysterious, and the rest was a nice reflection on how we view the world we live in.
I think my family went cycling on Læsø one summer -- never knew that Thor may have had a big fight there. Even though it has generally been a Christian country for a long, long time, something about that pre-Christian period still has a footing in the culture and in the people, I would say.
In defense of the US (which aren't words spoken by many Danes lately), I was an exchange student in Washington state, and some of the cities had some wonderful Native American-inspired names: Yakima, Tacoma, Wenatchee, etc. Not sure what they mean or how true to the original language(s) they are, but they definitely evoke something a bit more inspiring than "Project Road..."
Really glad you enjoyed it (and I hope my pronunciation wasn't too offensive! I tried my best).
Oh yeah, most of them are quite true to the original language. The spelling has sometimes settled in interesting ways but the words are indeed Native American. Usually they're the names they themselves used for places, landmarks, etc.
I just listened through it and thought you did a respectable job, hehe. It is obviously a different tongue than your own, and with that said, a word like "postnummer" could be pronounced 3 different ways depending on the country.
That's awesome. Those names have a real charm to them. I got to ride horses out in the prairie and the mountains there. Good times.
So true about places...take where I live; Los Lunas. I've had people correct me and say "Don't you mean Las Lunas?" Luna, after all, is a feminine word in Spanish. But Los Lunas is named after the Luna family who originally settled here!
New Mexico is filled with many wonderful place names like that; there are two mountain ranges named "hen" (gallina in Spanish) due to the abundance of wild turkeys. A broad, flat mesa around Glenwood was called the Smoothing Iron because it looked like someone pressed it with an iron...and I never did get the story behind Gutache Mesa, though I bet it's a good one!😂
New Mexico is beautiful; I need to visit there more!
My home area has an interesting mix of place names. Like many other parts of the world, the cities, towns and regions are named after the settlers who came in, but the rivers, forests and the rest of the land have still retained their Native American terminology. The layers are interesting.
New developments, though? We literally have a strip mall that was made to look like a repurposed firehouse. It says “Engine 51” on the side of the building and it means absolutely nothing. It really bothers me.
I grew up in California and only a few of the native American names survived the Spanish settlement; Aptos, Soquel, and Zayante. But the Spanish heritage was rich. I think that’s why I like New Mexico so much.
Nicely done James. Complex and compelling ideas (and metrical precision, as usual). I've never asked, but I'm a little curious about why you never use punctuation. Prefer the flexibility/ambiguity?
Thanks, J, and I'm glad you asked because now I get to share this John Clare quote:
"I am generally understood tho I do not use that awkward squad of pointings called colons and semicolons for the very reason that altho they are drilled hourly, daily and weekly by every boarding school Miss who pretends to gossip in correspondence, they do not know their proper exercise for they even set grammarians at loggerheads and no one can assign them their proper places."
I don't know if I'd go that far, but for me, I suppose it's a question of what it is I'm posting: am I sharing written work, or writing down something that was meant to be listened to? I'd rather have the words on the page come first—seems more abstract and safer somehow, especially since the sound of my own voice is irritating to me—but honestly, I think it's important that voice now come before the page. Books are great in that they allow Byron and Keats to communicate to me directly, but only because that's better than nothing. Far better it would be to sit by the fire and hear from them in-person.
Today, there are so many ways for us to abstract out human experience with technology, so I'd like to reverse that trend wherever possible; get toward something more at-hand and personal. That's why I see the listening as coming first, with the writing just a record of that transmission. Because of that, punctuation tends to be a bit of an afterthought.
This is so interesting. I think you have a philosophy of poetry unlike anyone else I've ever met. In my experience, lots of writers--both folks I've met and reading writer's bios throughout history--tend to be the "loner in a room, prefer the written word over all human contact" type, so I appreciate how deeply your approach to art is grounded in community. (Though I wouldn't say that reading--or punctuation--are just substitutes for human conversation.) Yesterday I finished Ben Palpant's book of interviews with various poets, and the Malcolm Guite one would be up your alley! He had a quote where he said: "The idea of the lonely, romantic genius in his weird, peculiar place whom everyone has to make allowances for leads to this kind of confessional poetry which gets worse and worse and more and more obscure. What does it amount to? Another strange little adventure in the world of me. I don't buy that at all. No, I want to be the bard of a tribe, to tell the great, collective stories that bind us together--but, of course, I tell them as they've happened to me." Made me think of some of the stuff you've shared on here.
Thank you, I really appreciate that! And yes, I love that Malcolm Guite quote. I'm along his line of thinking in quite a few ways.
I think the community aspect comes out of necessity. Guite's "great, collective stories" used to be so important, they saved lives in the winter months. We have central heating and grocery stores now, of course, but—just me speaking here—our culture is drying up. We live in a society that seems trapped in what Iain McGilchrist might call a left-hemisphere reality. (I see this a lot through my day job and it's a dismal, claustrophobic place to get stuck in.) We need more "people of the skin bag" as the Irish might say to re-cultivate ourselves. Sure, writing requires withdrawal, but I think an important second step is rejoining the community to share what we've found before we venture back out again.
Loved to read this conversation and the bit by Olivia below as well. I wanted to mention that in my own writing I also think about the sounds being made of the poem being spoken. However, this makes me in some ways more precious about the punctuation as I want it to be spoken and sound a certain way (visually represent with enjambments too, etc). Sometimes I hear a poet read their work and I get confused as they read it 'straight'. I'm new to the game so we'll see how that develops in my work and what I read/listen to. I really appreciate your page as one of the only ones that puts audio content along with your writing.
That makes sense, too; both are deliberate choices that I believe make sense, depending on what we intend. And thanks very much, I do appreciate that. As I mentioned, I'm not the biggest fan of the sound of my own voice, but it's something I'm working on and I think it's a good thing to try to use it.
Most people aren't fans of their own sound - our inner ears are strange filters. For what it's worth neither your voice nor mine are as good as Geoffrey Hill (his lectures are good just for the awe of his timbre), but I think yours is very fine!
hahah well that's good enough for me, thanks, Nick. (Just as long as it's not in Ben Stein territory, we're good.)
As a Scandinavian, this was a fun read. The poem was engagingly mysterious, and the rest was a nice reflection on how we view the world we live in.
I think my family went cycling on Læsø one summer -- never knew that Thor may have had a big fight there. Even though it has generally been a Christian country for a long, long time, something about that pre-Christian period still has a footing in the culture and in the people, I would say.
In defense of the US (which aren't words spoken by many Danes lately), I was an exchange student in Washington state, and some of the cities had some wonderful Native American-inspired names: Yakima, Tacoma, Wenatchee, etc. Not sure what they mean or how true to the original language(s) they are, but they definitely evoke something a bit more inspiring than "Project Road..."
Really glad you enjoyed it (and I hope my pronunciation wasn't too offensive! I tried my best).
Oh yeah, most of them are quite true to the original language. The spelling has sometimes settled in interesting ways but the words are indeed Native American. Usually they're the names they themselves used for places, landmarks, etc.
I just listened through it and thought you did a respectable job, hehe. It is obviously a different tongue than your own, and with that said, a word like "postnummer" could be pronounced 3 different ways depending on the country.
That's awesome. Those names have a real charm to them. I got to ride horses out in the prairie and the mountains there. Good times.
So true about places...take where I live; Los Lunas. I've had people correct me and say "Don't you mean Las Lunas?" Luna, after all, is a feminine word in Spanish. But Los Lunas is named after the Luna family who originally settled here!
New Mexico is filled with many wonderful place names like that; there are two mountain ranges named "hen" (gallina in Spanish) due to the abundance of wild turkeys. A broad, flat mesa around Glenwood was called the Smoothing Iron because it looked like someone pressed it with an iron...and I never did get the story behind Gutache Mesa, though I bet it's a good one!😂
New Mexico is beautiful; I need to visit there more!
My home area has an interesting mix of place names. Like many other parts of the world, the cities, towns and regions are named after the settlers who came in, but the rivers, forests and the rest of the land have still retained their Native American terminology. The layers are interesting.
New developments, though? We literally have a strip mall that was made to look like a repurposed firehouse. It says “Engine 51” on the side of the building and it means absolutely nothing. It really bothers me.
I grew up in California and only a few of the native American names survived the Spanish settlement; Aptos, Soquel, and Zayante. But the Spanish heritage was rich. I think that’s why I like New Mexico so much.
Lot of indian names here, too…