marvellous stuff Lawrence, many thanks.
FWIW there's a word in the Irish language, cóngar, which implies
closeness, proximity, in the neighbourhood of, "an cóngar" would be a
shortcut.
best
and please feel free to be as expansively knowledgeable and witty as
this anytime,
Randolph
On 19/05/2012 14:04, 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
> ----
>
>
> -----
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>
--
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