My English is an illness that I caught in my late adolescence.
An assembled language
reconstructed
from song titles and lyrics
that
are glued together
in order to form a mnemonic collage.
Words are decorative sounds
more than they are traps to capture and organise meanings.
My English:
A domestic place from which sometimes I feel excluded even though I'm its only owner, an indistinct space, transformed into a familiar landscape.
A sensation similar to moving to a new neighborhood and not feeling part of the new scenery. Then, suddenly, you notice you feel at home in an anonymous apartment building of an industrial suburb.
Words, words, words are decorative sounds
Once I had a boss who had lived in New York for a while. Sometimes, just after I had expressed myself in English, he would repeat my sentence, making a caricature of my accent and adding expressions such as fuggedaboutit while gesticulating showily with his hands.
My accent stirred up cinematographic memories in him. My language was infused with those images from Hollywood TV-series.
My words were like cinema for him.
Therefore, I thought, there are images buried in a language.
Therefore, I thought, I want to pronounce them.
Imagination bridges gaps in understanding, while fantasising about a word
can reveal different perspectives about it.
Lullaby is definitely one of my favourite English words.
L-U-L-L-A-B-Y
I am always happy whenever I can use the word lullaby in a discussion.
I recall all the times that I have casually used the word lullaby.
There have been 16 of them.
I also like very much:
MOON
CARCASS
TOURNIQUET
ANYTHING
Words, words, words are decorative sounds
If a language is born in a precise geographical location, there comes a moment in which geography is transformed into history.
Tristan da Cunha is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, 2,400 km from the nearest continental landmass. The first settlers on the island were sailors who came from Scotland, England, the Netherlands, the United States and Italy. Until today, the population has maintained the surnames of the founding fathers of the community. The language spoken on the island is the result of a complex crossbreeding of linguistic viruses from which the authenticity of the original English language has irremediably fallen ill.
Apparently, my English embraces the most common grammatical errors that are part of the dialect spoken on the island.
(Sometimes I am scared you won’t understand me while I’m pouring words into your mouth.)
In some hidden nook of my discourse, various vague images of that land are
evoked by my language.
Crescendo for doodled words
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
Within the first breath of a word a new geography starts.
I wrote this poem while I was in New Orleans and I was a resident at Deltaworkers. Later in 2020 it became the screenplay for my video Words Words Words Are Decorative Sounds. This version was re-edited for misted.cc.