Monday, February 20, 2012

Found Poetry in Wikipedia

The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher, but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s.

It makes perfect sense, and it may well be true, for all I know, but it is so improbable, so hard to process at a first reading, and so dull (these things are all linked, and linked to the conclusion) that all you hear in your mind as you read is the sound, and the sound is good.

4 comments:

Vincent said...

I immediately guessed that this must be the entry for Banksy. Right! Then I immediately guessed that Banksy himself had inserted this particular graffito (your quote) into the Wikipedia article. Not proven! It's sourced to someone else's book about stencil graffiti which exists as described and is available from Amazon.

But I suspect him of providing the poetic sentence.

The Hickory Wind said...

A prize for that man!

I suspected the sentence of being deliberately crafted for some reason, it's just a little too good in its rhythm, and the 'Bristol aerosol boom' is clearly an insider's view. I hadn't done any further research, though, so thanks for confirming that the essential facts are correct (I should say adequately sourced).

Vincent said...

Ye-es, but I had till now suspected that all sentences were deliberately crafted for some reason, & that very few were found objects crafted by the wind and tides, for example, & washed up on a beach.

But then, I'm a pedant and not ashamed of it. And of course I know what you mean.

The Hickory Wind said...

Ah, well spotted. I should have said, 'for some reason other than the immediately apparent one of transmitting information clearly.'

Just imagine finding tales told by the wind cast adrift on the sea or washed up on the shore. The writer's chosen task would become like the critic's, a question of identifying the good and leaving the rest as flotsam. I have had a few stories come to me in dreams, but they are always very hard to pin down on the page.