LANGUAGE AND PLACE ON THE EDGE

Language and Place.

At the center of everything we touch, everything we do.

At the heart of who we are.

And yet, the edge is where the action is.

It’s at the edge where you’ll find movement and change, trial and challenge.

The edge of reality, the edge  of existence.

The leading edge of life, the trailing edge of memory.

The center is important, yes, but the edge is where we make discoveries.

And I’m not the only one who thinks so….

Visit this month’s Blog Carnival and see why thirty writers and artists linger on the edge. In stunning images and words, people in places as different as Baltimore and Hong Kong, Newport and London, New Zealand and Nepal, explore the edges of art, story, poetry, text, history, innocence, experience.

Excerpts from the edge:  

Close your eyes, and follow your breath… This isn’t going to be dangerous… A map puts a route into a somewhere… This half of me is desperate… I hurl heavenwards… now I grope for words… They’re just not like us, you know… fatefully we drove onward/ blindly you dove forward… I get a thrill in my guts and in my heart… She sailed away on strings of her own choosing… Modest visions of who I could be… A warning since before memory… From centre to circumference/we drift…

Welcome to Edition #6 of Language and Place Blog Carnival. Follow the links below and let this month’s participants take you to extraordinary places.

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Poetry playing at the edge

Michael Solender melts back into the snows of his youth in “Northwoods” / Not from here, are you?

Linda Simoni-Wastila rides mania to its polar abyss in “when i refuse the lithium” / LeftBrainRight

Walter Bjorkman weaves images and words in two places at once in Desert Wine/Manhattan Sour / Qwik-Bake Synthetics

Sharon Cooper explores the space where nothingness resides in “A Deep Vault & Long Shadows” / scoop3sjc

Bill Yarrow moves from a Mumbai attack along a journey to many new places in “Word Salad” on his website Bill Yarrow

Whangarei poets including Aaron Robertson, Piet Niewland, Vaughan Gunson, and Martin Porter explore the edge, each in their own way, at Take Flight

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Images dancing the edge

Jen Knox reflects on art and beauty (alongside her father) at Literary Exhibitionism

Place and time dance on the page in Jean Morris‘s “Flickering images” / tasting rhubarb

Sandra Davies winds her way through a history of hurt in “Curve of early learning” / lines of communication

See how trees and light come to life on Elizabeth Enslin‘s “Surprised by Light” / Yips and Howls

Steve Wing asks basic questions to get you thinking at fireflydomain

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Meaning and memory on the edge

Dorothee Lang explores translation and synonyms in her essay “out of whack and out of step” / virtualnotes

Susan Gibb experiments with hypertext and searches for meaning in “Hiding Secrets” / Hypercompendia

Tim Murphy gives up certainty and control in his engineless sailboat at Artistry Unleashed

Nicolette Wong reflects on her grandmother looking back and floating forward in “The Lost Island” / Meditations in an Emergency

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Fiction thriving at the edge

Stephen Hastings-King takes you on a journey with imaginary maps and more questions than answers but a whole lot of real in “Siren” / Adventures in Post-Reality

Marcus Speh spins a crystal ball of images and colors in “on the edge” / Nothing to Flawnt

Lou Freshwater longs for bellydancing and good company in “Curry” / Baby’s Black Balloon

Take a “Jump” and discover your inner superhero with Christian Bell at I’m not Emilio Estevez

Wander through an existential journey with Robert Vaughan‘s “Breath”/ One Writer’s Life

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People exploring the edge

Len Kuntz is a man divided in “Torn” / People You Know By Heart

Parmanu puts an elusive Oslo down on paper in “If only I could write about Oslo” / Parmanu

Julia Davies feels the rhythms of water and sand in “the edge” / practice makes perfect

Bernard Heise reflects on being at sea and coming to terms with the importance of doing nothing at all in “Passage Making” / S/V Momo

Christopher Allen gives up the search for bras and hobbits and instead experiences New Zealand’s Fjordland in “Sacks, Boats, and Clots!” / I must be off…

Michelle Elvy visits a place as tenuous as they come when she sails to Palmerston Atoll in “Balancing between Yesterday and Tomorrow” / Glow Worm 

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Announcements:

Thanks for visiting. If you are interested in Language and Place, you are invited to join Edition #7 of the Language/Place Blog Carnival. It will be hosted by Julia Davies,  a practised reader and practising writer who lives in Germany and blogs at practice makes perfect. The theme is “unwritten language/ unnamed places” and the edition is planned for end of June 2011. Submissions open June 1 – 20.  Details here. 

Call for submissions – BluePrintReview’s “Challenge issue”

Submissions are now open for the next issue of BluePrintReview. The theme is “Challenge” (with a focus on short stories, deadline: 26. june). Details, including a best-of-2010-challenge, here.

Also…

The Language/Place Blog Carnival now has a Facebook page. Join our conversation there about language and place:  post comments; add links; come and share.