chain coral Chorus
Snipers In walks, consider not that which catches vision, but those hiding beings spreading vision back at you; pulling in fossil pulses. I'm about two months into my residency with the BCGS now, and having a really wonderful time exploring what the different geosites have to offer. They're such rich, lush and mysterious places; drifting through them with a geopoetic lens has profoundly impacted my own sense of place and heightened my passion for this region's history and culture. I've said this before, but it's worth repeating - there is something really special in the experience of getting lost and being awestruck in sites that are just outside or on the edges of our everyday realms. Take West Park in Wolverhampton - here you'll find huge glacial erratics pitched in the park grounds like ancient totems. They travelled hundreds of miles during the glacial epoch, and are older still. A poignant reminder of the toddlerdom of humanity on Earth. You can touch this piece of ancient movements where kids play football, where dog walkers and joggers circulate, just minutes from Wolverhampton's bustle. The same can be said of Hayes Cutting; a fascinating dipping sequence tucked behind a rusted rail on the Industrial Estates of The Lye. Commuters, deliveries, school runs zip passed as it sits in almost invisibility. There is something atavistic in these sites, or something that summons and imbues atavism. I don't mean this in any negative way; I see it as a touchstone for reconnecting with our locales, lands and the Earth in a deep time context and with the tactile knowledge that runs down to the oldest parts of our biology. This is why I've taken the title of this blog from John Playfair's observation of James Hutton's work. This, I think, is what White was talking about when he said "The geopoeticist is immediately placed in the enormous" or when Francis Ponge stated "they sink into the night of logos - until finally they find themselves at the ROOT level, where things and formulations merge" or when George Amar thinks about the embodied knowledge of reading the land "reading is like swimming or dancing [...] eskimos can read snow and nomads desert sand". These are things that we can walk through, touch, see and smell, and in that connect us to our region and our land in ways that are both intellectual and visceral. It is, like ancient wayfinding skills, embodied and physical wisdom. It seems totem was exactly the right word for West Park's erratics, and I'd use it for the geological cuttings and other features across the region too: that which, with a strange sense of animism, calls and connects people and place. Tourist Tracks Wren's Nest ripple beds gawp back at tourist gawping in brown leaf models, unaware of permanent dead insignificancies. Keep a keen eye on this blog over the coming weeks as I explore these ideas in more depth and tell you about some of the exciting plans I have in place for this residency. Here's a little teaser: I've managed to rope in some fellow poets to help bring new perspectives to this project, and am very excited to say that Lee Armstrong, Liz Berry, Roy McFarlane and Emma Purshouse will all be involved in writing guest blogs and site-specific poems, and joining me to discuss and read their work in future events. Stay tuned! On October 1st I'll be sharing these ideas and my poems at Geopoetry20. You can check it out here - https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/geopoetry20 On October 8th I'll be talking about my Geopoetic ramblings for the University of Wolverhampton's ArtsFest Online. Check back here for links and information over the coming weeks. In November it's the annual Being Human Festival, and I'm planning a Geopoetry Walk and Writing Workshop on the Wrenna. Details will come soon when the full line up is announced. Until then, in the rocks we trust! https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429990-900-how-to-think-about-deep-time/
https://www.institut-geopoetique.org/fr/textes-fondateurs/8-le-grand-champ-de-la-geopoetique https://www.institut-geopoetique.org/fr/cahiers-de-geopoetique/31-editorial-du-cahier-n-1 https://www.institut-geopoetique.org/fr/cahiers-de-geopoetique/118-du-surrealisme-a-la-geopoetique |
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January 2022
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