Hello Colin,
            Thanks for your reading and comments. I take many of the points you make about the colonisation of various parts of the world and the present sorry situation in Iraq. I should say that this poem is not directly concerned with Iraq at all. It was written some time before that situation developed and is not meant as a comment on it. Neither is it intended as an anti-American poem. I´m not anti-American and I don´t believe the poem is either, although I was alive to the danger of it being read that way. As the title suggests, it is about colonisation as an activity. I set the `events´ such as they are in America because I wanted a location. Those events do not have any historical validity, quite the opposite, although I take your point that at the period when white Europeans were engaged in colonising North America, the American nation did not exist. It´s also very plain that the English race ( I am English myself) has been engaged in colonising large areas of the globe over centuries. I think it would be a massive own goal for me to criticise another nation for its historical imperialism.
Your point about cutting out national references is interesting, but I wonder how it would work. All colonisation must be colonisation of a place. I feel that giving it a location is necessary. The selection of America is, as you remarked, historically distanced and in that sense does avoid reference to contemporary nations. 
Well, these are charged times and it´s perhaps inevitable that people read this poem in the light of what´s happening in Iraq. Indeed, `in the light of...` is a good way to read it I think. But what I was trying to do was to make a generalised comment on the imperialist attitude - in fact what you describe in your phrase `something essential about the colonisation process´. That is what I was after. I guess I´ve fallen flat on my face then. Oh well.


Best wishes,   Mike




--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Mike,

So you did it at last. You saucy avatar.

Erm, I'm a bit concerned that this poem risks a cultural comment. Would it
sound the same if all the refs to the USA were switched to refs about
Australia for example? Hasn't the colonisation of virgin areas always been
harmful to the natural environment? Look at Britain. Many thousands of
years ago it was colonised by diverse ethnic groups (on the make) and now
look
at it. Not exactly an oak woodland teeming with brown bear, wolves and wild
boar.
It may be no accident that places that we think of as the
cradle's of various civilisation are dust bowls/ backwaters/Lowry paintings.
It is because they have been inhabited by Homo Sapiens for so long. That's
what colonisation/civilisation does to a place. They may be rich in old
buildings and culture but that's
about it. All else has been chopped, mined or in some way done in. Earlier
people have always done the same, as far as their technology allowed. When
the first people, Amerindians arrived in the Americas, 80 percent of the
large mammals went extinct. (Even if this doesn't make it causal it is
associated in time, which makes it suspicious). I don't see why this is
specifically an American problem. I'm not pro or anti- American. I am just
concerned about a generalisation applying to any particular
group or the possible splitting off of a particular group.

It's just my opinion but I wonder if it would be stronger poem if all
national references were lost, allowing something essential about the
colonisation process.

Why now with this poem? I can't help thinking that this is an oblique
reference to what is happening in Iraq. But if so, why not attack the
process rather than a national group? Must everyone be tarred with the same
brush? Why can't the people in the UK and the people in the US who are
against
 the war be best mates and the people in the UK and the US who are in favour
of it be best mates?

Is Iraq undergoing a colonisation process. I don't know. It's too early to
say. Depends on what comes after the invasion. Certainly any intelligent
adult be able to examine this question in due course. However I wonder if an
appropriate comparator group would be the British colonisation of Iraq
earlier this century (did not succeed in making a profit BTW) but it could
provide a rich parallel. You could use one to speak for/through the other if
you felt that there was a generic process. Incidentally the colonisation of
a sparsely populated pre-agricultural place (as North America was) is a
different thing from colonisation of a densely populated agricultural/
industrial place. In the latter the immigrant group assumes there is already
some "exploitation" of resources going on and they forcibly plant themselves
at the top of it. Another BTW is that non-European populations (I include
people of largely European descent e.g. New Zealanders in my definition of
European through lack of a better word) don't distinguish between Anglophone
populations. They dislike (find over-bearing/righteous/ too individualistic
rather than detest ) the lot of us and the current century is just one more
of Anglophone hegemony. Of course this itself is a generalisation. I am
thinking e.g. millions of people in the middle of China for example rather
than an integrated and educated elite.

Hope this is not out of line. Feel free to ignore, rebuff etc. What do I
know? I hope you will carry on with whatever you want to say. I just thought
the poem (rather than you) could do more with this subject.

Colin





----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 10:05 AM
Subject: New sub: Colonisation


Important announcement

For many years now it has been my great ambition to write a poem that
contained a word beginning with F. My Oxford English Dictionary actually
lists 3,957,381 words beginning with this letter, but I was not to be so
easily satisfied. Nothing but the world-renowned and highly-respected F-word
would do for me. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me now very great pleasure
to be able to inform you that my endeavours have met with success. The poem
you are about to read does indeed contain this most famous of words. Readers
who would prefer to enjoy this word in all its glory without being put to
the bother of reading the whole effing poem are kindly requested to proceed
directly to the final line where they should be able to locate it without
too much difficulty. Readers of a sensitive disposition are advised that
they continue at their own risk. Incidentally, I should perhaps add that
this poem also contains a word beginning with C. I don´t quite know how that
one got in, but I would like to disclaim all responsibility.




Colonisation

Here I am in America, a country as big as myself.
From the swelling breast of the eastern seaboard
to the spine of the Rocky Mountains
it is all mine because I am the first.
No one was here before me.
I have sucked on the nipple of Newfoundland
and drew mother´s milk, milk of the motherland.
I throw out my chest and claim kinship with all this.

All I see is there for the taking
so I go where I please, tread the flanks of hills,
sail the river arteries to the heartlands.
I stride the plains and forests freely
in leather boots and trapper´s fur hat
and a bowie knife with a six-foot blade,
sharp enough to rip the belly out of this country
if she gives me any trouble. Bitch.

Here there is freedom and space to breathe.
Here a man can stretch his arms wide
and be a man. I haul logs.
I turn the soil. I stuff my mouth
with red meat and swallow.

The motherland spreads her legs
round the Gulf of Mexico,
dreaming of new offspring.
I go down to Florida, to the soft,swampy cunt of her.
Now I´m in. There´s oil here somewhere
and I aim to drill it. Fucked if I don´t.



Mike