Oh, the power of language… International Poetry Month beckons!
In my previous post, Language’s Power: across the universe, I mentioned the power of language to create and transmit images across time and space, a pas de deux between writer and reader. How far back can we travel through time? One of the many inspiring things I encountered in 2016 was some poetry that had its beginnings in the 21st century BCE: a new and utterly gripping translation by Andrew George of the Epic of Gilgamesh along with fragments of other Akkadian and Sumerian poems. What a flood of fascinating images! Interestingly, the ones that have stuck with me are the ones that I can’t resolve because they are are so unfamiliar; as when, in the Old Babylonian poem In those days, in those far-off days, the goddess Inanna takes an uprooted willow from the banks of the Euphrates to plant in her garden:
‘I, the woman, did not plant…
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Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed it.
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It was my pleasure, Merril. Glad you enjoyed it.
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I, too, enjoyed reading this … years back I did a bit of Inanna study, and could have used a trip to the past to inquire about several wordings. Robert, are you active in Austin’s International Poetry Festival each April?
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The development of written language fascinates me to no end. I’ve not been active in the Austin International Poetry Festival or, for that matter, the Austin poetry scene. I attend the occasional reading, but otherwise don’t get out all that often.
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I did the AIPF thing for a few years but have lost interest in running around town looking for parking places to listen to poetry I can’t quite hear due to cafe noise. If you were reading, though, I might face the traffic for one event. Hence the query.
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I’ll likely be participating in a non AIPF reading in April, and will announce it here. It would be wonderful to meet you in person!
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Yes! Thank you, Sir Robert! This post gives me such hope.
I, too, believe that poetry’s power both to birth the previously ‘unsayable/unsaid’ and to resurrect the ‘no-longer-said’ in its original purity from its ancient, buried roots, embodies our best hope in the face of the twisted, anti-intellectual, post-truth ‘traditionalism’ currently saturating and threatening the endurance of the human psyche… The divine-feminine will continue on humanity’s behalf to tamp down the blight and foster our vital sustenance with her foot — as surely as poetry’s lifeblood is her very life-death-life nature, which reaches our visceral depths to restore us to wholeness.
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I knew it would please you! I’m planning on submitting 2 or 3 poems to Bonnie’s International Poetry Month, which you might consider doing. 🙂
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Haha! I’m already on it! The theme is throwing me a little — in a way, all my poems incorporate the theme, “Neural Networks: The Creative Power of Language,” but not necessarily overtly so. Maybe that’s good? Hmm…
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I’ve drafted one on written language. It “touches” on neural networks, or at least drifts through them…
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🙂 I have a recent piece that is a montage of sorts imposed upon a vascular network (of a retina), in which “sight” (which does rely on neurons, right?) is of implicit importance… I wonder if that’s too much of a stretch? Well, there’s one way to find out, I guess.
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Sounds appropriate to me!
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Of course, I’ve since changed my mind… Lol!
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Of course!
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Thanks for letting me know about this.
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