david.bircumshaw wrote:
>
> > I see my tribe as that of rootless cosmopolitan intellectuals.
>
> Just pondering on your phrase, Frederick, with interest, in that against the
> package 'rootless + cosmopolitan+ intellectual' I would tend to see myself
> as, erm, waaal:
>
> 'rootless' yes on the grounds of an abolished family, a childhood
> disappeared under the bulldozer, and an inhabitation of that City which is
> Every City
> but no in that my voice, my accent, is stamped with what I am, am from
>
> 'cosmopolitan' only in my experience of Indian restaurants and in my dubious
> knowlege of other languages but profoundly provincial not only in where I
> live but also in that there is No True Centre anymore but its Myth is
> Everywhere so all of us are always inalienably oinks (but rootless)
>
> 'intellectual' - well wish I were it summons a bespectacled figure I read
> about in childhood but any modicum of self-examination tells me that I am
> only self-reflexively cognitive for a pitifully small portion of my waking
> time
>
> just wondering, how do others see themselves on this
>
> david b
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 2:34 PM
> Subject: epic
>
> > Wondering (again) if anyone ever looked up my two book-length narrative
> > poems, The Adventure (1986) and Happiness (1998), both Story Line
> > Press. Though the second was billed, against my wishes, as "A Novel in
> > Verse," both tell coherent, non-"splintered" stories in, I think,
> > authentically poetic, non-novelistic ways. I wouldn't claim that either
> > is an epic, but I firmly believe a revival of epic is a real, and vital,
> > possibility. Both my books were meant to contribute to that
> > possibility. The "tale of the tribe" aspect is certainly open to
> > reinterpretation; I see my tribe as that of rootless cosmopolitan
> > intellectuals.
What is an oink?
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