Not at all! I really appreciate the perspective, believe me. Have a
wonderful weekend (You're ahead of us and already "in" it) :)
Sheila
On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 10:43 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> Oh good
>
> I thought I was being nerdy
>
> L
>
> On Sat, May 19, 2012 19:37, Sheila Murphy wrote:
> > Lawrence, what a bonus! I awoke to your beautifully educational missive!
> > Several features of the locale were new to me, notably the names and why
> > (including Agnes). Thank you for this. I've saved for rereading and
> > reminding.
> >
> > The explanation of the terrain, its fit into the English and not-English
> > elements, provides a very fine frame around what is an extremely fine
> > poem!
> >
> > Thanks, Sheila
> > On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 9:29 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >> yes, it all seems to have come through in an odd order
> >>
> >> I don't think I'll say anything
> >>
> >>
> >> they've been werry good to me they have
> >>
> >> L
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, May 19, 2012 17:34, Douglas Barbour wrote:
> >>
> >>> Yes, it did, at least to me
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> (but then I cant see much of the time if mine get through, so...).
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Doug
> >>> On 2012-05-19, at 7:04 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> didnt seem to get through
> >>>>
> >>>> ---------------------------- Original Message
> >>>> ----------------------------
> >>>> 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]>
> >>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> ----
> >>>> --
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> 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
> >>>> ----
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> Douglas Barbour
> >>> [log in to unmask]
> >>>
> >>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> >>> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Latest books:
> >>> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> >>> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> >>> Wednesdays'
> >>>
> >>>
> >> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press
> >> _10
> >>
> >>> .html
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The postliterate sensibility is offended by anything that isn’t
> >>> television, views with suspicion the compound sentence, the
> >>> subordinate clause, words of more than three syllables. The home and
> >>> studio audiences become accustomed to hearing voices swept clean of
> >>> improvised literary devices, downsized into data points, degraded into
> >>> industrial-waste product.
> >>>
> >>> Lewis Lapham
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----
> >> 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
> ----
>
|
