Norrie Bissell

Living on an Island: An approach to geopoetics


bisselln01pic1.jpg Two days spent on Luing by members of the Scottish geopoetics group provided the inspiration for a whole issue of Island magazine. Editor Julie Johnstone invited submissions in the form of poetry, images and reflections and was richly rewarded by material from fifteen hands, including a preface from Kenneth White, progenitor of the geopoetics movement. He responds to his own question, ‘What is it about islands?’ with a series of observations on the significance for people of distance, of silence, of the sense of an island as both an open system and as an area of land, ‘comprehensible’ – defined by the circumscription of the sea. Never a man to take the straight route or the road more travelled, in the span of a few pages White conjures a spare archipelago of thoughts that carry the mendicant philosophical spirit that typifies his approach.

Here we present a recording of a talk by Norrie Bissell about Luing, describing its natural history, geology and character and tracing some ‘geopoetical’ paths.

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Visit the website of Essence Press, publisher of Island magazine, at essencepress.co.uk

About the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics: www.geopoetique.net/archipel_fr/scottishcenter /SCfGdirectorsreportOct04.pdf

Speech and first photograph © Norrie Bissell 2006; second and third photographs © Roger Bygott www.polestar-arts.co.uk

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