Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Elsewhere and Erstwhile -- Cecelia's Question
Kaia Sand talks about "being attuned to aspects of the geography more difficult to read...what I came to call the the elsewhere & erstwhile." How would you define the concept of the elsewhere & erstwhile, and why / why not is poetry the most expressive and appropriate form for documenting this concept?
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ReplyDeleteIn the first prose/essay section, Kaia Sand, again admitting the difficulty of reading geography in a different way, says the challenge for North Portland is "imagining a much larger population" and finding a way to express the "movement of people". For me "elsewhere & erstwhile" deal with how the world (culture) unfolds, or folds, from/onto itself, always connected, whether people are aware or not, to other physical places and times. I don't know that poetry is the most appropriate form, but I will say that I believe it is great for this concept because of its use of time.
ReplyDeleteI've seen pictures where artists blend photos of the same area from different time periods. Those seem to show how things change physically, but are still static images. The experience of language, whether spoken or written, as highlighted in "How to Build", occurs in time. In my mind, you can get a sense of movement in language and music that isn't the same in 2D or 3D art.
Also, poetry allows Sand to overlay not only tangible or visible objects but events, and even new inventions, in a way that resonates emotionally.
"Japanese Americans were ordered to bring what they could carry...How many PODS would my possessions fill?" She's able to bring past and present together, and combined with walking, creates an enriched poem, emphasizing the movement of people here and now, and "elsewhere & erstwhile", that extends and touches the space it references.