'I can write back as easily as a wall makes an echo ...'
Edward Thomas to Gordon Bottomley, 1902*
'Footfalls echo in the memory ...'
T.S. Eliot
'Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance ...'
Carl Sandburg
'Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo ...'
Don Marquis (quoted in 'Waiting for the Echo', listed in bibliography).
* See title page of Edward Thomas's Poets ed. Judy Kendall, (Carcanet 2007)
*
Background to my Echo Blog...
This blog arose out of my short article on Echo Verse for Poetry Cornwall / Bardhonyeth Kernow.
Latest News...
25 March 2013
I heard my mp3 recording of my poem, 'Turner's Loch Coruisk', echoing through the engine shed tunnels of The Roundhouse in Camden as part of the Invisible Architecture Installation by Antlers Press. It was a novel way to mark World Poetry Day. The poem was inspired by Turner's watercolour of the famous loch on Skye.
July 2013
'Walking in Echoes' - a poem by Dawn Bauling, Reach Poetry, #178
24 September 2012
I have just encountered this poem, 'Echo', on the Via Negativa blog.
18 July 2012
The issue of Poetry Cornwall/Bardhonyeth Kernow can be found here in electronic form on the Southbank Poetry Library site.
25 March 2013
I heard my mp3 recording of my poem, 'Turner's Loch Coruisk', echoing through the engine shed tunnels of The Roundhouse in Camden as part of the Invisible Architecture Installation by Antlers Press. It was a novel way to mark World Poetry Day. The poem was inspired by Turner's watercolour of the famous loch on Skye.
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| More information about the Camden Roundhouse arts centre here |
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| An internal tunnel radiating from the central circle |
July 2013
'Walking in Echoes' - a poem by Dawn Bauling, Reach Poetry, #178
24 September 2012
I have just encountered this poem, 'Echo', on the Via Negativa blog.
18 July 2012
The issue of Poetry Cornwall/Bardhonyeth Kernow can be found here in electronic form on the Southbank Poetry Library site.
23 May 2011
A copy of 'A Riddle' by Catherine Maria Fanshawe (1765-1834) has just come to light in my study. You can read the poem here, and there is information about about poet and poem, here. The 'echo' allusion is in the second line.
April 2011
I found a brief yet deeply profound 'echo' allusion in Immediacies by John Dotson (Mariprosa Press 1987).
1 September 2010
I have just come across an Education Website, with instructions for those who wish to help youngsters to write their own Echo poems.
21 August 2010
I have just received a marvellous poem about Echo the Elephant from the pen of Born Free Foundation Poet-in-Residence, Richard Bonfield. Echo lived on Mount Kilimanjaro, and was the first elephant to have a radio collar fitted for scientific purposes.
27 April 2010
Professor Lewis Turco, author of one of my favourite books, The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, now has a short section on Echo Verse (and a mention of the Bref Double) in his online work, The Book of Odd and Invented Forms: A Samisdat Manuscript in Circulation. Professor Turco is Emeritus Professor of English at State University of New York, Oswego.
26 April 2010
I have just been enjoying a couple of Echo Poems here on allpoetry.com. Do take a look and be inspired to have a go yourself!
16 October 2009
The Dylan Thomas Centre, SwanseaI have just returned from an excellent international evening at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, hosted by Peter Thabit Jones, editor of The Seventh Quarry poetry magazine. The evening was dedicated to the memory of Dylan's daughter, Aeronwy, who had toured parts of the USA with Peter earlier this year.
During the course of the evening, Sultan Catto, 'a professor of theoretical physics at the CUNY Graduate School and at the Rockefeller University' and 'Executive Officer pf the PhD program at City University of New York' read a poem, 'Echo', from p.33 of his collection, Under the shadows of your falling words (Ediciones Godot Argentina 2008, ISBN978-987-1489-06-0). The poem, it seems to me, is full of spatial possibilities and unexpected reflections: we wander and wonder in a realm of 'secluded mirrors' and 'unending walkways'.
Sultan was joined by Aleksey Dayen, and I was able to buy his book, 'NO!Love' (ISBN 978-0-89304-225-7), published by Cross-Cultural Communications in New York. Aleksey gave a highly individual reading of 'Jailbird Blues', accompanied by singer-songwriter, Terry Clarke. It was a most enjoyable evening.
***
Background to my Echo Blog... continued
The article on Echo Verse for Poetry Cornwall / Bardhonyeth Kernow was written to accompany my poem, Echo from the West.
In the course of unravelling a little about the history of Echo Verse for the article, I became fascinated by the subject and thought that the best way to order my discoveries was - initially at least - via a blog. So here it is. It is primarily intended as a reference resource.
I hope you will come to enjoy this intriguing poetic phenomenon, too: indeed I should be grateful to hear of other favourite examples, even if I cannot promise to list everything.
My Echo Verse article has just been published in issue 26 (Volume 8, Number 3) of Poetry Cornwall / Bardhonyeth Kernow.
The sections in my Echo index to date are as follows:
- (1) Echo from the West: an Overview of Echo Verse by Caroline Gill
- (2) Classical Echo Verse and allusions to the nymph, Echo
- (3) Echo Verse and the Echo motif in French Literature
- (4) Echo Verse and the Echo motif in English Literature (including Shakespeare)
- (5) Echo Verse and the Echo motif in the literature of other European countries
- (6) Echoes and Whispers: (a) The Whispering Gallery in St Paul's Cathedral
- (7) Echoes and Whispers: (b) The Whispering Seat in the grounds of Wilton House, Wiltshire
- (8) Echoes and Echo Verse: bibliography
- (9) The Echo motif in music
- (10) Echo Poetry devised by Aurélien Dauguet in 1972
- (11) International Echoes
- (12) Unusual Echoes
- (13) The Echo motif in art and sculpture
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