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"Personal iconography" is a thing the pond dwellers around here talk about when making art. The visual symbols we use. How they evolve and layer and repeat and pattern. Where they came from, their cultural context...
Translating into text there are favourite words we all have. Each poet has their personal lexicography. Their word list that is probably freighted with meanings that only they will ever know the depth of.
So I thought I might start a little chat here about favourite words (Helen will no doubt begin with waft), what they mean, how other poets have used them, meanings across oceans and time and borders...
Which brings me to my first word. Or words. All words to do with edges, margins, borders, surfaces, lines, boundaries. Especially skin. I love them all. I even used pallisade once. Words that ask where do we begin and end? When is it you and when is it me? What do I have to do to these words to share them, so they are more than me and can move into your landscape and you can met them eye to eye, or hand to mouth?
If anyone is interested we can look at your favourite words, where they came from, what they mean to you or to us, your reader, the way other poets have used them...
La G
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Actually I lifted it out of this rather sweet little book light on credits and detail, where Ten Australians choose their favourite poems and...I just assumed because it was so like life with skip on our street, well , ya learn something every day at this font of wisdom.
Thanks for the tip.
La G
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By way of apology to John should he be reading this, and maybe you have not seen this one and it a great tihng to have in your repertoire when a little suckofancy is required.
Deep Sorriness Atonement Song
(for missed appointment, BBC, North Manchester)
The man who sold Manhattan for a halfway decent bangle,
He had talks with Adolf Hutler and could see it from his angle,
And he heard the Silver Beatles but he didn’t think they’s make it
So he chose a cake on Pudding Lane and thought “oh well I’ll bake it”,
But his chanced they were slim,
And his bothers they were Grimm,
And he’s sorry, very sorry,
But I’m sorrier than him.
And the drunken plastic surgeon who said “I know, let’s enlarge ‘em!”
And the bloke who told the light brigade “Oh what the hell, let’s charge ‘em,”
The magician with an early evening gig on the Titanic,
And the Mayor who told the people of Atlantis not to panic,
And the Dong about his nose
And the Pobble re his toes,
They’re all sorry, very sorry,
But I’, sorrier than those.
And do’;t forget the Bible, with the Sodomites and Judas,
And Onan who discovered something nothing was as rude as,
And anyone who reckoned it was City’s year for Wembley,
And the kid who called Napoleon a shortarse in assembly.
And the man who always smiles
‘Cause he knows I have his files,
They’re all sorry, very sorry,
But I’m sorrier by miles.
And Robert Falcon Scott who lost the race to a Norwegian,
And anyone who’s ever spilt the pint of a Glaswegian,
Or told a Finn a joke or spent an hour with a Swiss German,
Or got a mermaid in the sack and found he was a mermman,
Or him who smelt a rat,
And got curious as a cat,
They’re all sorry, deeply sorry,
But I’m sorrier than that.
All the people who were rubbish when we needed them to do it
Whose wires were crossed, whose spirit failed, who ballsed it up or blew it,
All notchers of nul points and all who have a problem Houston,
At least they weren’t in Kensington when they should have been in Euston.
For I didn'tbuild the Wall
And I didn’t cause the Fall
But I’m sorry, Lord I’m sorry,
I’m the sorriest of all.
Glyn Maxwell
published in Sydney with thanks to the author in this little book I have here which I should not be reading I shoud be painting, BACK WORDS BACK>>>
La G
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| | | From: susie | Sent: 6/5/2002 6:33 AM |
another British poet who lives in the U.S. excellent article on this young man in Atlantic Unbound (link on our Home Page). ;-) this is a new poet for me - thanks for bringing him to my attention. susan |
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O susan you are wonderful. What a lovely diversion into the Atlantic... When I have finished reading all these boards I will cruise down all thse links.
A girl could get lost in this rabbit hole that is turning into a tardis...
And I am getting back to being grown up and methodical here, but have to be visual and I lose my words then...
La G
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as a kid i read william saffire cause i knew i needed too thanks for that post sus but i always rushed to russell baker |
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| | | From: Landon | Sent: 6/5/2002 10:47 PM |
You are right to read him though, Luck. Saffire knows where he begins and ends. A fancy trick. Most of us can't do it. It's all about focus and intent. Moderns seem to tilt toward another school where the chosen words are often more important than the theme or syntaxical presentation. Saffire is from the Old School. Bless him. May his words continue. Thanks Suze. Reasonable people read reasonable people. I like the watercolor on the wall behind my desk. There is a old guy fishing in a pond. There is a sunset. He is in a small boat. He has a small fish in his hand....which by the angle of his arm, we are to assume he is throwing it back. At the bottom of the watercolor the artist has inscribed a quote from Eudora Welty's fine book One Writer's Beginning. She is from the Old School like Saffire. The quote: Good writing is rewriting. Landon |
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| | | From: Landon | Sent: 6/5/2002 11:24 PM |
ps Luck Yes Chomsky! Nice to stretch and explore a mind which has deconstructed the language. See his book Transformationl Grammar. Once a hot topic! But no more! It fell at the feet of tradition! That was odd! But...in the classroom Derrida and his Deconstruction School which came on like The Theory for the Ages.....survived longer. But...in the last few years, hmmm....you'd be surprised how little real attention is given to modern theories. We still teach Dr Johnson and Coleridge. How can you square this when in the same course you have to blend an option so far away from the norm like Derrida and Michael Foucault? How do you umpire aesthetic authority? Mush less teach it? Oh well....that's not you guys problem...is it? You can think whatever you want without impunity. Cool to have a hobby like writing without having to exlain what you think to the Dean. pps just between us there is a myth about the English Deparment It ain't that liberal. Landon |
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| | | From: susie | Sent: 6/5/2002 11:40 PM |
don't get lost Alice - a lot of people stop by for our links. make sure to watch your step out onto the superhighway. susan
jim,
funny. and i always got a rush from bertrand russell.
interesting, landon..
very interesting to see your interest in Derrida.
now tell us what the myth is all about.
susan |
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Landon,
you put so many ideas into one post!
Starting with umpiring aesthetics: Well it is a thing everyone does. We just have to be real about it. And giving us the knives and forks to do it, as a lecturer, is a useful thing. My experience in this area (which is in art) would suggest that is really useful to help your students access their own baggage (creeping elements, see the first post) in relation to an art work or piece of writing. The ability to separate themselves from the work, and then return to celebrate the work as a function of themselves.
Which is where helping people to talk about their words, where they come from, comparing them to the ways they have been used traditionallly and in contemporary work may have some uses...if we can just get under each others masks a bit...or come through the glass.
Maybe you know all this or it sounds a bit Crystalcaliforniandolphinspeak... For me, there is both a visual and written aesthetic that we all, as human's, share. Sure it is culturaly driven and experientially overlayed, (keep panting Pavlov, I love a bit of dog's breath)... but it is there. Chomsky got it right. I don't know enough about Derrida but would love to sit at your feet and listen or Susan can send me off down a rabbit hole.
And what is happening in your English Department is happening all over the world. Looking for certainty, relying on old stories, taking our time about digesting the new stuff of the last century. Ideas everywhere swinging slowly towards conservatism along with the politicalscape...But the new stories stories have had an effect. Over process if not content. Chomsky has changed the face of teaching here in Australia. As has Piaget. As has Gardner.
I too have a boat. I wonder how much 'fishing' as a way of being speaks to all of us. A shared vision, I can't quite get into the collective unconscious and prefer Teilhard de Chardin's concept of the no-osphere, (ditching the catholicism and keeping the space)..do you guys know this one? (Looking far a shared language again)
My boat is a small sculpture my daughter made sitting up on my monitor. I cannot remember the words exactly and will check it later and get back to you but wasn't it Andre Gide who said that one can't discover new lands without first consenting to leave the shore?
I wonder how many of our members think about fishing and like fishing words. And what they mean to them. Fishing as a metaphor for life? And can we leave the safe shores this side of the glass on our monitor's and come out and share these things? Does it make sense?
In the meantime, I am very interested about what people think about words like margins, edges, borders. Surfaces. Do you use these words? What do they mean to you?
What is it about Saffire, Landon, that makes you think he knows where his edges are?
And please put your words down, with your thoughts behind them (maybe not set in poems, not all that easy to pick 'em out when they are in that context) Or in a poem and then with small explanations or whatever.
Thanks Doc, Landon and Susan for all your thoughts.
La G
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| | | From: susie | Sent: 6/6/2002 3:02 AM |
some fallacies in Teilhard de Chardin's reasoning. but i need time to present my view. later. susan |
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you've had a few years suze..lol
la |
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Just for the heck of it, here are some of my favorite words: Any word that proposes questions but isn't a word used for questioning such as: Paradox, Enigma, Conundrum, Puzzle, Riddle, and of course the word Question. There are a lot of these... Any word with the letter X, because if I had to name a letter I like the most, it would probably be X. The words Exit, Excessive, and Juxtapose are personal favorites. I like the many different ways X can be pronounced and the confusion this causes. The word Owl is my favorite word. Owls are beautiful creatures no doubt, Owl is a beautiful looking word and Owl sounds exceptionally beautiful also.Thanks for giving me the oppurtunity to share those. |
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kite it probably one of the sexiest words all time. when the k goes dental it drives me nuts. as opposed to smorgasbord. |
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| | | From: _susan_ | Sent: 1/20/2005 4:04 PM |
yeah. we should add 'penis' to the lexicon discussion because it is so funny. :-( |
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