I had a chance to read chapter four of
poet Eavan Boland’s memoir, Object Lessons: The Life of a Woman; The
Poet in Our Time. In this part of the book, the poet grapples with the
power of language and talks about how a poet’s unfamiliarity with its nebulous
spokes of meaning makes it difficult to form a sense of place and mode of
observing the world. I think the relationship between language and perception
is fascinating. Boland speaks of the moment in a poet’s life when he or
she observes this confusing power of language. For her, it was as a teenager,
trying to simultaneously learn Latin and Irish, while finding head-space to write
her poetry in English! She remembers being totally lost amid three distinct and
apparently irreconcilable systems of meaning. Her world was colourless, since
she received, perceived, and expressed the world through very tentative
language.
I remember feeling distinct pulls of language after my first
year of university. I knew enough about Philosophy, English, Political Science,
Psychology, and Religious Studies to confuse and perhaps deceive myself. The
tastes of the words were unfamiliar on my tongue, their meaning still quite
impenetrable for me. In second year, I began taking Creative Writing classes,
and I added a French course. The language systems of meaning in my other
courses conflicted with that of Creative Writing. I found it difficult to switch
from one mode of meaning and expression to another. It was a time of semi-solid
sentences, and the conflicting modes of meaning made my thinking foggy, my
creative mind unsettled and unsure of itself.
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| Language reveals and conceals Image found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nofrills/10895361/ |
I agree with Boland that writers must traverse this sort of confusing wasteland early in the writing life and struggle to make sense of the many fragments of meaning. She remembers the slow (but sure) lengthening of her use and understanding of language as her knowledge base increased. As she read, her mind grappled with merging the new knowledge, language systems, and fragmentary meanings, to her sense of being in the world. Boland recalls how language helped her to make poetic interactions with the world. She begins to feel at home, despite language’s obvious fallibility. When our language, and knowledge base acquired through its gate, is limited, our creative is also.
We continuously fit new knowledge within a standing
framework, establishing new points from which to observe the world. Through
observing the tension, we're drawn to its fallibility mystification. For
me, this happened once when I observe the conflict of meaning in Greek-English
translations, and when I occasionally find
it impossible to convey my ideas through oral or written
means. Sometimes our language systems conflict or fail to convey meaning.
Recently, I have begun to embrace the fact that language will inevitably leave
us restless, but is the only vehicle by which we make sense of the world. When
we harness meaning, however fragmentary, language is our mode of
placement.
