-----Original Message-----
From: cris cheek <[log in to unmask]>
To: british-poets <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 26 July 1999 13:34
Subject: Re: imagination dead imagine
|It's interesting to me for example that Mischon de Reya, the London-based
|solicitors, appointed a poet in residence to enhance the usages of language
|in their firm so that they might perform 'better' in courtroom situations.
|Law is as intimately related to language as poetry - now there's a
|discussion topic.
I think your response was very useful. I've read it twice and shall return
to it. Without facetiousness etc well done. I've been trying to find such
words.
.
I didn't have any trouble with your "Technicians..." & I agree that the word
"Imagination" and "Creative" for that matter is still useful
.
On this particular quote, this goes into the hijacked area of "creative" -
creativity is all the rage among personnel types - the imagination they want
of course is bridled, domestic spells rather than Manhattan Project alchemy.
I guess the poet there is licensed. I heard her talking about it and it was
interesting and odd - everyone gets their turn to dip into the exotic waters
but they don't become aquatic. Perhaps that's enough mixed up metaphors for
now, but
.
One element of poetry is the charm - incantation, summoning, mimicking - and
the law too is an attempt to pin down the world and subject it to verbal
power - the use of specialised language, the silent chorus of the courtroom,
the multitudes of clerks servicing the necropolis - THE BOOK(S) and the
mockery if the uninitiated tries to work the system
.
>From what I have read trials in the past were both more chaotic - like the
readings where you have to have good crowd control to read - and more
"eloquent" - oh gentlemen of the jury I appeal to you cast your eyes upon
this unfortunate wretch etc - so this move is interesting - modernism /
postmodernism for lawyers?
.
All the best
Lawrence
ps my spellcheck want to turn "mishcon" into "mistune" - always interesting,
spellchecks
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