No wars but in words
When I was at school, my friends and I used to have long philosophical arguments about whether or not it was possible to have a thought which wasn’t initially in words. I was a strong believer in the idea that a thought could precede the words which expressed it: that it often had to be translated – imperfectly – into words, after being conceived in musical or architectural or simply relational terms. Of course I couldn’t prove it, as our discussions were conducted entirely in words. We were also very concerned about the status of mathematics. Was it really a language? Did its axioms constitute words, or were they somehow superior to those slippery entities (as the budding scientists among us tended to argue)? Now that I’m older, my trust in words has not grown greater – but I think I love them more. In fact, “words are windows” was the first phrase that came to mind for this paragraph, until I realised it lacked a “no” and a “but”. Words are windows. They show us things. But they don’t do so clearly. And when you read – as I did in the online news today – that in Russia now you can “speculate freely and quite calmly on the prospects of nuclear war,” I’m again terrified at what treacherous little disease-laden free radicals words can be. I’d like to set against that the opening of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms: “I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain … There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity.” That is to say, choose your words wisely, or they may blow up in your face.
(24-25/5/22)
'Poetry Shelf Paragraph Room 3: No ideas but in.' Ed. Paula Green.
NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews, and other things.
[Available at: https://nzpoetryshelf.com/2022/06/03/poetry-shelf-paragraph-room-3-no-ideas-but-in/ (3/6/22)]
[294 wds]
Poetry Box: Paula Green
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