On Fri, 3 Dec 1999 16:21:46 GMT, Peter wrote:
>But it's certainly true that coot and tern can't come from the same haunt
>because one is a freshwater fowl and the other is a sea bird. I still
>prefer tern to a word for heron which was obsolete even in Tennyson's day.
- My word, gosh that's so, seabird indeed, tho I guess at least in the
19th cent there were still marshes on the Lincs Coast (around the Wash
perhaps) where the two weren't so far apart, as they aren't in the
reserves of East Anglia today - but that's by the by - I thought you
changed it from hern to tern to make way for your next turn, which I
liked, very much in the spirit of Wall itself, with its rushes and
sudden sallies of crushed quote echoes and telescoped syntax, and yes,
of course, there's continuity there as you say ("I'd've thought that
was obvious," quoth Brahms, when someone remarked on the continuity
between his symphonies and those of an earlier symphonist) and there's
also a new take there which needs celebrating, and if one remarks on
that one isn't necessarily doing it to score points, but because it's
there too - but where's the Tennyson buff to tell us that hern was
probably quite acceptable still for T on his country days, just as
harn will get you by on most of the East Coast even today, tho frank
is by and large obsolete...
In conversation, one finds that one person says one thing, another
adds to it not by saying the same thing but by saying something
different, without necessarily disagreeing. The two statements
complement each other, even tho neither person has said EVERYTHING
which they could be said on a particular topic - perhaps cos that'd be
rude and could go on for ages, or perhaps because they're working
things out. All the other people in the room aren't obliged to join
in, tho they're welcome to, but their right of silence shouldn't be
taken as lack of interest. Together, I think, the two recent poems
have got things bobbing along quite nicely, thanks to poets,
poem-posters, and everyone else. If I say, More! More! it's in no way
intended as a criticism of deficit in what's gone before, or an attack
on those who have nothing to say and so remain silent.
Too long! Too long! I'm trying to get my posts down to postcard
length...
RC
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