Hi everyone
I'm new on the list and thought to jump straight into the conversation. To
me language is a torment, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath
water. The so-called civilisation, with all its agony and ecstasy, owes a
lot to language and words. How would we go about doing that most lively
function of life - sex - if we couldn't 'make conversation', 'chat up' or
'get to know eachother'? In a sense, I think our words have taken the
function of the caveman's club. And well, the rest is history. Use and
abuse of language, however, isn't a conscious relationship. At times I have
knowingly offended people with my poems, but I don't see that as an abuse.
To tell a lie, to write without honesty, and to express acceptable opinions
for the sake of being accepted; now that's the problem. Levi-Strauss made
an interesting observation when introducing 'writing' to a 'native'
Brazilian tribe. Not unlike the chimps of the previous messages, the
'uncivilsed' people, almost immediately, broke into hostility and
aggression, and they did more than calling eachother 'dirty'; they got out
their spears. The problem with this story, and the likes of it, isn't
whether or not they represent the truth; it's the story-teller's
(arrogant?) assumption that 'uncivilised' people, animals and any other
'others' don't already possess THEIR OWN code of communication. Language,
whether a blessing or a curse, exists with or without words, with or
without writing and, sadly enough, with or without poets. What WON'T be
there if we take the culture - and its structures - out of communication,
is the language's ability to transcend and overcome its barriers. An
obstacle, to my experience, has been the superiority of English as the
'national tongue' in Australia. Seeing as a huge number of Australians are
non-English speakers by birth, the irony of this situation is nothing short
of an outright oppression. Here, I think, Marx's view of alienation serves
as a deadly reminder of how people lose their voices only to be
discriminated within the social assemblage; an abuse of language if there
ever was one. Nonetheless, I have not written in my mother-tongue - Persian
- since coming to Australia at 15. To have relied on basic communication
skills - that is, 'everyday English' - would have meant a submission to my
being alienated. Now I'm doing a Phd in poetry. Tormenting as it often can
be, being a 'poet', for all its worth, has brought me face to face with the
monstrosity of language; the least I can do is giving the bastard the
finger, or I can attempt Dante's trick and try to climb up the fiend in
order to climb off it.
Ali Alizadeh
Melbourne
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