These poems have previously been shown in exhibitions on Breton Landscape (No.1)
and the Parish Closes (No.2).
What’s in a Place-name also appears in my book Spirit of Place in Finistere.
No.1 WHAT’S IN A PLACE-NAME?
With a name, space becomes a place
Geographical glue for man’s environment
Knowing the name of a place is a badge of belonging
Knowing how to give directions is control over strangers.
Territorial affection breeds protean vocabulary
From simple words of shape and structure
To the bounty of Earth defined a myriad ways
Names celebrate nature.
Then toponyms become self-referential: the founder, the owner.
They record man’s constructions.
They record the memory of human action.
They become the anchor of community.
Naming says power and possession, a claim on the land.
Place an ideological issue: taming the wilderness.
Saints and miracles construct social identity.
Names enhance and distort, privilege and pretend: heroes and devils
To attract a crowd.
Woeful that Arthur is a better draw than nature itself.
Rather a rock be Big or Broken or Beautiful or Brilliant, but belong to no-one.
No.2 FAITH is
FAITH is certain, the way that’s known.
FAITH is someone at your shoulder.
FAITH is blind hope against being alone.
FAITH is a form of silent despair, going nowhere.
FAITH is a guide, a compass inside.
FAITH is a dream, a fancy, a trance.
FAITH is love and romance.
FAITH is glue, sticking together.
FAITH is an almost forever.
FAITH is illusion, but one bright and gilded.
FAITH is for the weak and deluded.
FAITH is trust in bones and blood.
FAITH is no protection from flood.
FAITH is ritual, seeing one through.
FAITH is for those who take the long view.
FAITH is triumph, the answer to dying.
FAITH is arcane and mystifying.
FAITH is determined, hopeful, courageous.
FAITH is sometimes sadly contagious.
FAITH is a pivot between inner and outer.
FAITH is the noble scourge of the doubter.
FAITH is full, an absence of nothing.
FAITH is a cover for empty and blank.
FAITH is someone to beg and to thank.
FAITH is standing on the brink.
FAITH is not what people think.
