Poetic Habitats, Impossible Homecomings

Poems are apt figures for the often-fraught experience of coming home. Reading a poem for the first time is like entering a home, but a home which is not ours. Only (but not always) by residing there long enough can we make it our own. But it is an experience rife with existential uncertainty; each...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inResisting the Place of Belonging pp. 181 - 191
Main Author Janiszewska, Hanna
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 2013
Edition1
Subjects
Superb
Lime Tree Bower
Uncanny Homecomings
Slant Beams
Young Man
Urban Uncanny
Water Fall
Gabled Dormers
Vice Versa
Frank Luther Mott
Lively Joy
Kansas City Art Institute
Mid-day
Blessed Mood
Drawn Back
Almighty Spirit
Poetic Faith
Circuitous
David McLintock
National Academy
Horae Canonicae
Richlier Burn
Face To Face
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Summary:Poems are apt figures for the often-fraught experience of coming home. Reading a poem for the first time is like entering a home, but a home which is not ours. Only (but not always) by residing there long enough can we make it our own. But it is an experience rife with existential uncertainty; each reading at once makes it more habitable for us (by making it more familiar) but also more complicated. With each re-reading, we encounter the ghosts of readings past and strive to keep the experience self-consistent; with each reading, we face the possibility of disappointment, of being lost, of being bored. We want the memory of reading and its present to coalesce.
ISBN:9781032243030
1409453944
1032243031
9781409453949
DOI:10.4324/9781315605777-18