Vincent thanks intense! I just Do we the imposing 'Vertiginous' word twice??
Cheers patrick
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From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stephen Vincent
Sent: 08 August 2012 00:40
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Subject: Snap - Vincent
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(A snap newly refined from my journal en route in Turkey)
Monday, June 4, 2012��
�
The
intense presence of Istanbul as a vertiginous space � particularly so as we
walk &/or take the �vehicular tram� down the steep hill from the Galata
Tower to the Galata Bridge. The walk across the Golden Horn, the name for the
extended body of water between the old town- the Faith District which is full
of ancient churches and mosques � and the Galata neighborhood which was once
the home of Christians, refugee Jews, other tribes and criminals.� The Bridge's wide east side pedestrian walkway is crowded; young and old,
fishing rods in hand, shoulder to shoulder, including a few women friends or
family among them, hold their rods out or prop them on the side edge of the
protective steel rail; occasionally they variously break to lean over the
walkway to prepare their hooks with fresh bait. This constant visual presence
of people fishing � as we discover - can strike one as almost a religious rite.
The waiting at what is now the darkening edge of dusk, waiting, the pulling
back on the poles in response to a nibble, the occasional catch of a fish,
their singular silver bellied dark bodies dangling through the late light,
lowered on to the sidewalk, then released into a white bucket. They may be
sardines or small bass, I don�t know. Most fascinating is, pole in hand, the
intense focus, and among some, the deep quiet of the waiting. A kind of
secular prayer. It�s as if to get a nibble or to hook an actual fish
is to confirm the existence, the vital living existence of one�s soul. Looking
here at Istanbul�s citizens, stretched out across the bridge one might imagine
that each was filled with an isolated interior darkness without a connection to
anything. The loneliness that accompanies the quest to make contact with a
fish, and the sense of desire that accompanies it, is practically palpable. Vertiginous.
Stephen Vincent
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