1st edition 2016
80 pages
Hardcover, 13 x 21 cm
ISBN 978-3-943324-92-1
Warenkorb anzeigenPaul Crichton
Twin Earth
In a thought experiment devised by the philosopher, Hilary Putnam, a “Twin Earth“ is identical to the earth except for one thing: water on twin earth looks and tastes just like water on earth, falls from the sky and comes out of taps, but has a different chemical structure. People on twin earth refer to it as water, but it is a different substance (XYZ-water, not H2O-water). This was taken by Putnam to show that „meanings ain’t in the head“ but involve external reality.
„Twin Earth“ can also be interpreted as a representation of earth which simultaneously resembles it and differs from it. In this much wider sense, poetry itself can be seen as a twin of the world.
This collection of poems refers to reality. Its themes include space, time, illness, loss, the North, Mozart, Thucydides, Homer and Kafka. This is poetry which moves lightly from the cosmic to the personal, from the sardonic to the compassionate, from the comic to the grief-laden, from the mock-pretentious to the brutally direct.
A poem from the collection
The Letter
I thought I heard you laughing in another constellation.
Travelling from silence to silence, the train stopped near a forest.
I got out and read your letter on the platform.
The blanks between the words were cold and white.
I looked up and saw across the track, where the train had been,
red fields burning without fire, the horizon, the sky.
Contents
In Space • Gravity • Beyond the Horizon • The Feynman Point • Sunflowers • The Moon
Spindrift Notes • Wolferl Amadé • From Duke Street, St James’s, to Dean Street, Soho • My Meetings with the Monarch • Food Chain • The Quantum Physics of Love • A Birds-Eye View • Song • The Woodlouse • Dear Body • The Two of Us • The Letter • The Distance • Droperidol Forte • How to Make up Your Mind • The Stranger • Nice to See You • The Silent Movies • The Myth of the Given • Nine Ways of Thinking Seeing Eyes • The Cat Is Singing
Water • Homage to Herman Melville • Water • The Undertow • The Island
The North • Halkirk • One Day I’d Like To Give All This Up • The Wind • Iceland • The Winter Solstice • Snow • The North Country • Winter
Loss • Another Day • The Meeting • The Lightness • Woke up This Morning
Ancient Greeks • Thucydides Tells Us • Sing, Goddess, the Anger of Penelope • Hektor’s Double Death • Priam and Achilles
Variations from the German • Splinters of Kafka • The Winter Journey