didnt seem to get through
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Subject: Re: Perconger
From: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sat, May 19, 2012 11:45
To: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics" <[log in to unmask]>
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Hi Chris (and Sheila) and thanks for your comments.
I am not quite sure what constitutes English in a good way poetry; but
I'll not argue.
I shall now tell you more than you may want to know
This is England but... It is Scilly. Scilly is in the extreme south-west
of Britain, about three hours off the coast of Cornwall, or twenty minutes
if you go by air.
Cornwall is not England whatever the English say. Scilly is. Not that it
matters except in terms of dealing with the buffoons who rule us.
Relate it, if you will, to my many poems about the bar between St Agnes
and The Gugh. That bar creates two coves, bays, whatever between the two
islands - there is basically a drowned valley between in which a bar has
formed. (Two asynch tides)
The southern cove is called The Cove. It used to have a different Cornish
name which I have either forgotten or never knew. The Cove is undeniably
an English name and Cornish hasn't been spoken on Scilly for many
centuries. The Gugh, too, is English, I believe, though not current. Agnes
means off-island and is nothing to do with a female saint -- something
like ek enes, but there is no surviving record of that formulation
Off The Cove is Covean (from Cove Vean, one word English, one word
Cornish, Cornish syntax): small cove
The northern cove is called Perconger, and we arrive by swerve or shore
and bend of bay at my title. Perconger is what the islanders have done to
"Porth Conger".
Porth is landing place. Can't tell you what conger means. (I have posted
poems about Periglis where I like to spend my time stroking a cat. Porth
Eglos, landing place by the church -- of, if you translate sloppily,
Church Cove)
You come in to Perconger past the rock that looks like Queen Victoria's
old age profile, between the sometimes islands and go to the quay on the
west side of the porth
When there's a bar, and there is something of one for much of the day, it
is due south and you can sit and look at it on a bench on the quay, where
I sat writing en plein
Geologically Scilly is related to Cornwall, mostly granite and in some
places littered with erratics from the big glaciers which didn't quite
make it that far.
Speak of The Variscan Orogeny if you want to sound knowledgeable, a
geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental
collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the
supercontinent of Pangaea. Unquote. I just looked it up because I couldnt
remember when it was. Times blur as you get old. Laurussia was of course
named after me; where I lived in those days; but I missed most of
mountain-building because of writing.
It's pretty poor as mountains go, these days, but there is a noticeable
granite spine, here and there from Devon westwards -- no distance in N
American or Australian terms, but it sometimes defeats First Great Western
Railway.
The granite goes under the sea between Lands End and Scilly, so tough
do-do to all those who expect to see Merlin floating in on a leaf, and
forget all the stories of a hundred and forty churches and the city of
Lions drowned
Almost everything I have written about, in what you have seen here --
apart from the 575s a while back, which were from when I lived in Cornwall
-- relates to places within a mile of each other on Agnes
Right then. That'll teach you.
It is an ancient mariner
He stoppeth one of three
The other two go on ahead
He stoppeth only me
(Frank Muir)
I am though happy to speak of this all day and night should you consent
best
L
On Sat, May 19, 2012 07:57, Chris Jones wrote:
> I hesitate to say this, but, I am finding these very English in a good
> way, or perhaps a way I like. I haven't seen this coast but find myself
> wanting to go... is this south west coast?? Maybe, I could make it there,
> but not now. But I searched and found some photos.
>
>
> On 19/05/12 04:32, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>
>> The bulky slip for the revenuer's boat,
>> here still, unused for its purpose now, steep, with a more salubrious
>> paved landing place out to the left, a boat on there, angled.
>>
>> An extensive tumble of rock, weed-blackened,
>> up to the height of another boat, on grass, upon a trolley, an
>> inflatable, and then there's overgrowth of dense bramble right to the top
>> of what is visible here.
>>
>> A concrete quay, atop and round the old,
>> white markings for hoi polloi; and steel posts for chains to control
>> crowds; parcels; packets to be collected; plastic sheets and sacks of
>> various forms; all most tidily clean in a way suggesting work's getting
>> done and life is being lived with good effort.
>>
>> A slightly rippling sea through burnishing light,
>> scatterings of markers upon its moving shine, tethered rowing boats in
>> scintillation up to the shrinking tombolo. Columns
>> of Scilly Whites near to The Gugh coast edge, cultivated plots
>> outweighted by noise from others which have self-planted for years of
>> being untended, unstraightened, left.
>>
>>
>> [Scilly Whites are a type of daffodil]
>>
>>
>>
>> -----
>> Lawrence Upton
>> Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
>> Goldsmiths, University of London
>> New Cross, London SE14 6NW
>> ----
>>
>>
>
-----
Lawrence Upton
Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
----
-----
Lawrence Upton
Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
----
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