The Dark Passages: Katrina Porteous These fragments began as part of Book of the North, a collaboration between a number of North east writers and artists. In particular, they were inspired by the North Pennine lead-mining landscape of Alan Smith's canvases, and were intended to link in some subterranean way with Sean O'Brien's Drowned Book. They were subsequently taken up by composer Keith Morris, to form the first section of a sequence for the Bigwords concert in the Live Theatre, Newcastle. I had originally wanted to write something that was not simply a poem to be presented on the computer, but one which was written for the computer, as a composer might write for a particular instrument. I wanted to explore what this particular technology would allow me to do, that other media would not. One of the technology's interesting features seems to me its many layers, which allow a text to be non-linear, or for the reader to choose his or her own route through it. I see an analogy in this to the movement of a poem, which is also often non-linear, like a dance or a maze. The challenge for the author is to maintain structure, form and meaning while allowing the reader freedom to begin and end, to enter and leave the maze, where he wishes. Here, however, the fragments are presented as straightforward text. The over-riding metaphor linking this sequence is geological. The collection of fragments is structured in blocks and layers like the sedimentary rock that dominates the landscapes of the North East. A multiplicity of routes runs through it like tunnels -- the man-made and natural limestone passages of Northumberland and Durham's coal and lead mines, potholes and sea caves. The fragments are intended to guide the reader through various layers of time: from the massive scale of geological time, through historical and cultural time, to personal memory: and underground odyssey through things remembered and forgotten. |
| The Dark
Passages Out of the space at Nothing's heart North and South were wrenched apart. Out in the dark, the farthest stars Stamp their braille that no one reads: A message sent and not received. I said to the stars: What is written Down in the dark, In the dark passages? In the ear the waves of sound Roll like breakers up the sand From the time when time began. The singing grass and the aching sky Are waves that break upon the eye. There are rocks and there are rivers But at last All rocks are rivers. In the book of sperm and blood Are written the recipes of the dead. The equivocation of the north Records the story of the earth. Sedimentary I said to the stars: Song of the Dead Men Song of the Bowse There are rocks and there are rivers The Smiddy Widow The Living |
| Katrina Porteous is an award-winning poet based in
Northumberland. Much of the work in her first collection,
The Lost Music (Bloodaxe 1996), deals with the fishing
community of this area. She has recently enjoyed poetry
residencies in Cornwall and the Shetland Islands, and
earlier this year was a guest at the annual Cowboy Poetry
Gathering in Nevada USA. Her work has been featured on
BBC Radio's Finelines, Stanza and Woman's Hour.
On to Bill Herbert OR Sean O' Brien Read Katrina's contribution to The Poets' Calendar |
