A Gap in the Hedge
Social media can be the death of concentration. It can inveigle its way into the lower reaches of one's subconscious and subliminally demand more and more attention throughout the day, especially if one is feeling down, emotionally fragile or politically fraught. It can hedge you in.
You know how it goes if you aren't careful: "Here comes Twitter, swinging its way through any sensible discourse like a wrecking ball dressed in Tarzan's loincloth, yodelling away until all in its path is drowned out. Watch out! Facebook's here too, meowing cutely and slashing the day to ribbons with a lion's claws. Instagram-bam! No Pinterest for the wicked! Take a Tumblr for the team!"
Sometimes, however, you'll find something out there that silences all those capricious little horn-headed algorithms, something that stops the noise entirely and makes the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. You know, the sort of thing that one can get from books, read on a comfy sofa in the still quiet of the afternoon, or from devoted listening to one album over and over. The sort of epiphany that long walks, or sex, or food eaten with a ritualist's rigour, can supply. The sort of epiphany that sets off avalanches which reveal other glories long hidden beneath the now-moving stones.
These epiphanies don't happen so often with social media, but when they come, it's worth taking note.This happened to me for the first time in a long time recently. After a long stretch of months - not all that surprisingly coincidental with a weird, miserable winter - I happened upon a photograph of a quote 'cited by Robert Macfarlane in his introduction to The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd.' on Facebook. Or was it Twitter? It's hard to remember in the deluge. The quote, which I copied immediately, was as follows:“To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields – these are as much as a man can fully experience.”
That was all the information that was available. The quote made me drop everything, not least my internet connection, and pick up a pen and write a poem. It took some work, but it's a poem that I am pleased enough with to have sent out in hope of publication, so I will not be sharing it here just now. It was a poem which triggered other poems, which in turn triggered a book proposal for the pasture farming project I have been thinking into shape for the last year, which in turn was accepted within a day of sending it.
Of course I ordered a copy of The Living Mountain immediately, if only to know just who Macfarlane had cited. I didn't want to do the obvious and easy thing and just ask on Twitter. I wanted that book. That book which, even at a physical remove, had made me write without stopping for a week.The Living Mountain came today. I am halfway through it. The book is sensual and lovely, and I am over the moon with it. I also now know that the quote is from an essay entitled 'The Parish and the Universe', which is from Patrick Kavanagh's oddly-titled and long out of print Collected Pruse. The essay is also collected, under the slightly less inspiring title of 'Parochialism and Provincialism’, in A Poet’s Country: Selected Prose edited by Antionette Quinn. Despite the new title, that is on its way to me now.
I am pleased with social media again. It has done something wonderful, as any tool will if you treat it well.And this blog, which I am only writing whilst I take a break from sitting under a strong lamp with The Living Mountain? This blog is just a protracted thank you to Nan Shepherd, Patrick Kavanagh, Robert Macfarlane, and the person who shared the quote on the internet, whoever they may be.
It's even a small pat on the head for social media, which will no doubt be annoying the hell out of me all over again soon enough, especially as there's another election coming.
Never mind that for the minute, though. Right now, all I want to do is go and find a gap in a hedge and get to know it, pen in hand.
