Restriction of Form – Expansion of Horizon

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Francois Lachance

Dear Friend,

There is more snail post coming your way with more ephemera and yes, some poetry bits. Imagine they are smarties.

Today’s poem at Poetry Daily — made me realize that there is a difference between oracle and prophecy — a distinction helped by remembering a book written by Jan Zwicky called Lyric Philosophy (it’s on my list to read). It also reminded me of the oracle in the movie The Matrix.

For me … from me:

An oracle like a poem is a way of accessing advice (often advice that one would give oneself but forgot). It allows for creative juxtaposition:

Prophecy is about prediction; an oracle delves the deep past.

I conclude with this little bit from Surface Magazine. It’s about design but applicable to both poetry and oracles (in a way these call outs from longer articles are like oracles…

“It’s exciting to work within barriers and try to achieve something interesting within those restrictions.”

Tom Hancock

Yours,

F

And so for day 2752
26.06.2014

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One Response to Restriction of Form – Expansion of Horizon

  1. Francois Lachance says:
    April 11, 2020 at 13:27

    Indexing to mentions of “oracle” on Berneval
    https://berneval.hcommons.org/?s=oracle

    Quoting Donald Culross Peattie from An Almanac For Moderns (©1935; renewed 1963 )

    April 7th

    Man’s ultimate fate is not written in the works of Spengler or Veblen or Marx, but in the nucleus of his own cells; his end, if it be predestined, is in the death of a star, or in a rising of the bacteria. He will do well to have a heed to the nature of life, for of the life there is but one kind. Man shares it with the corn and the crow, the oak and the mayfly. Therefore in such natural things may he well search for auguries.

    In memoriam : Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006)

    She gave me a taste for taste and a love of the granularity of all creation – Black, former Baptist and Feminist

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Butler_signing.jpg

    I first encountered her through the Xenogenesis series and went on to be puzzled (still am) by Parable of the Talents. She had plans for four more Parable novels: Parable of the Trickster, Parable of the Teacher, Parable of Chaos, and Parable of Clay. May we write them in memory of her. She really understood and conveyed what WE meant. I would have loved to chat with her. I do whenever I read her books and give copies away.

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