Three drowning

Abstract

I think of poetry alternatively as me peeking out of a window or me on a bench spying on me peeking out of a window. When I am inside, I am mostly deaf and in company of images, which I rearrange in a calm similar to underwater. Because of my weak hearing, sounds are distilled and muffled and I work with them in small ways, looking at their shapes. Things go slowly—I take time to perform electroshocks on memories and dwell in places where things got stuck—often, in childhood. When I am outside, I am sad to see the house so silent and static, and sadness makes me resentful and mad. The games I invent might seem cruel in the attempt to get the me inside outside. I make temptations in the form of soundscapes and I poke objects while laughing loudly. I don’t understand why anyone would choose solitude to crowds, but I am fuelled by a secret longing for inertia. The me inside doesn’t understand why anyone would choose the opposite, but secretly she thinks about crowds, they are everywhere in her mind. This is not to say that the inside and the outside don’t communicate—on the contrary, they are the same thing, just split. I guess there are others, or there will be. It doesn’t matter if the split is double or triple or quadruple because they have a split in themselves already—there will always be so much splitting. I think this is a personal statement and I think poetry is very personal and very public at the same time. It has the thrill of a personal thing going out in the world, disguised but naked. Everyone is distracted by how naked it is, so it is in disguise.

Date of Award	1 Dec 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews
Supervisor	Oliver Hazzard (Supervisor)