Mention of Ian McMillan reminds me of his strong Wombwell/Darfield
accent, which he forgrounds in his readings, and which is, I think,
present in the structure of his work. It's a part of the place,
certainly, which he _makes his own_ in the same way that Geraldine
Monk uses her Blackburn speech as an integral part of her work in
print and performance (my memory suggests I commented on something
like this in writing up a reading which she and Alan Halsey did in
Durham some time back, but I could be wrong, as ever). All of which
makes me a bit sorry to hear Mark describe his home town (not a
million miles from Geraldine's Blackburn, but identifiably different,
I thought) as "not really anywhere"... must have something in its
sound worth hanging onto, no?
I'm honestly not sure how this relates to "Deleuze & Guattari['s ... ]
ideas on Minor Literature and how 'oppressed' languages or dialects
turn their poverty into a creative resource", but I imagine, in both
cases, there's a practical matter involved, of using to best effect
what you've got around the house. Nevertheless, local speech patterns
is powerful stuff: in "Basil Bunting: Poet of the North" Peter
Quartermain quotes Roger Casement:
"The language of a people is the fortress which the enemy first
assails, and once that fortress is captured and its stones levelled
with the ground, every other stronghold of nationality must inevitably
fall."
RC
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