The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon
Musings on Being and Becoming Human
Issue 21
Language and the More-Than-Human World
Since The Grapevine celebrates conversation, we have to ask what kind of conversation can survive our present culture’s apparent drift away from the artful and soulful values of language in both speech and writing? As we are now learning from a host of writers, those values are tied into our connection to the world we live in, to nature, to local landscape, to images and sensory situated language.
Poet Gary Snyder, who has long been an advocate for environmental protection, says this: Human beings themselves are at risk—not just on some survival-of-civilization level, but more basically on the level of heart and soul. We are ignorant of our own nature and confused about what it means to be a human being. He adds, This confusion stems from judging ourselves independent from and superior to other forms of life rather than accepting equal membership in the seemingly chaotic and totally interdependent world of wildness.
Question: Are we entering a time now of separation even from writing, or is it possible that through writing we might return ourselves to full-bodied natural expression, using words that proceed not from artless and soulless mechanical responses but from an authentic core of our animal humanness, embedded and embodied in landscape? How soon can we return to our senses? We have good news from David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous, whose book was listed under Recommended Reading in our last issue. In this issue, Views and Reviews features Abram’s book and focuses particularly on what he has to say about “writing language back into the land.”
Issue 21 of The Grapevine also features a variety of written pieces, including those in our Presentations chamber where Jonathan Knott and Barbara Knott enjoy baseball season through poems, and Barbara pays ongoing attention to her journal. In Entertaining Ideas, she considers how and why words matter as well as how metaphor is fundamental not only to poetry but also to becoming fully human.
The Reflections chamber contains an article on reminiscing by Charles Knott. In World Voices, we revisit one of Ravi Kumar’s reminiscences about his early life in India. Around Town with Nancy Rose zeroes in on her specific location where a birthday party took place in January of this year and where many attendees reminisced about meeting Nancy and each other.
Our Museum chamber returns for this issue to its identity as “place of the muses” where Barbara Knott creates a memorial tribute to her dog Ching. In Jonathan Knott’s Tracking History column, he reviews a remarkable animated documentary featuring Sgt. Stubby, the hero dog of American forces in WWI.
The Why We Love Atlanta chamber focuses on writing groups in and around the city that help to create a rich support system for Atlanta writers and performers. Featured are Atlanta Writers Club, Working Title Playwrights, and Zona Rosa writing groups. There is also an article on Gateway Performance Productions and Mask Theatre where writing, masking, and dance are all important features.
Barbara Knott’s Author Page revels in the publication of her new collection of poems, In Every Carnation: The Body of God. The page also links the reader to a film, The Bitter Berry, an award-winning docu-drama starring Atlanta actor Chris Kayser as Georgia poet Byron Herbert Reece in a fine presentation of the poet’s life and work, written and directed by Gary Moss. You will find there another link to a new short-short film Rain, directed by Kristen McGary, that also stars Kayser as he brings his many theater skills to another exercise in interpreting poetry. And check the Dublin Diary page for a look at Barbara's ideal poet photograph.
We would like to thank Sandy Mason (who prefers to be identified as sandy mason) for her vibrant photo contributions, including the sunset scene above.
May you as readers feel the richness of embodied expression we have worked to assemble and create for this issue!
Attention: We now have a Facebook page on which we are posting photos, videos, and evocative quotations as well as questions or comments from the writing staff, along with featured articles. Our plans are to include a roundtable group for comments that are not simply reactive but are also thoughtful and heartfelt, comments that may generate real conversation among readers of The Grapevine. Our intention is transition away from publishing separate issues to an ongoing publication of the journal.
NOTES ON NEGOTIATING THE WEBSITE: If you are a new reader of The Grapevine, WELCOME! Please click on our open door below and read introductory material. If you are a returning reader, we welcome you back. You may wish to go directly to the buttons on the left and begin exploring pieces assembled for this issue.
Some of the links inside articles will take you into the archives. You will need to return to "Home" at the top of the page to get out of archives and back into current material.
Spreading the Word
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THE DOOR IS OPEN. Come in....
The SALON presents a variety of writers and image makers, from promising beginners to seasoned artists. Anyone who wishes to submit a piece for our consideration can send it as a rich text format document (rtf file) through e-mail to associate editor Jonathan Knott: jknott@grapevineartandsoulsalon.com.
The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon welcomes comments from visitors. General inquiries can be sent to webmaster@grapevineartandsoulsalon.com. All our regular contributing writers can be e-mailed directly (click on Contributing Writers and open specific pages for e-mail addresses).
Editor and Host: Barbara KnottAssociate Editor: Jonathan Knott
Image Design: Bill Kennedy
Regular Contributing Writers: Ravi Kumar, Bill Kennedy, Nancy Law, Charles Knott, Jonathan Knott, and Barbara Knott.
Opinions expressed on this site are the opinions of the authors themselves, not necessarily of The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon. Each page on the website should be read in conjunction with this disclaimer.
Copyright 2018, Barbara Knott. All Rights Reserved.