A Missing Tool: Poetry as Mapping

A MISSING TOOL: POETRY AS MAPPING

An Extended Essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Diploma in Architecture

by Calum Robinson

First Reader: Dr Chris Speed School of Architecture Edinburgh College of Art 2010-2011

Word Count: 6364

1

Abstract This essay seeks to explain how mapping has come to express our understanding of relationships that favour rational identification over emotionally subjective and expressive purposes. It analyses the evolution of Cartesian based mapping and aims to develop thoughts on ‘absorptive mapping’ through narrative, songlines and poetry. It suggests that poetry can challenge the limitations of conventional mapping with its candid observation and ability to stimulate contemplation; advocating an alternative tool to map and discover place.

Keywords: poetry, mapping, absorptive, narrative, cartography

Preface I have identified Space and Culture: International Journal of Social Spaces a peer reviewed Journal published quarterly by SAGE Publications for my extended essay on ‘Poetry as Mapping’ Space and Culture brings together dynamic, critical interdisciplinary research at the interface of cultural geography, sociology, cultural studies, architectural theory, ethnography, communications, urban studies, environmental studies and discourse analysis. Space and Culture's unique focus is on social spaces, such as the home, laboratory, leisure spaces, the city, and virtual spaces.

Similar essays printed by the journal have included the themes of mapping, cartography, poetry and interpreting narratives; therefore, I feel it an appropriate choice.

2

Introduction Since the earliest maps, human kind has felt compelled to record, analyse and represent the world (Casey, 2002, p.141). It has fascinated us, as we discover and determine new relationships within the natural environment and the ever expanding built one we try to command. The term ‘mapping’ is applied to document this process, although it is a reasonably flexible word that encompasses many different disciplines. Today it is strongly associated with the identity of the cartographic map but is additionally practiced in the lexicon of computing, genetics, physiology, linguistics and mathematics (Oxford English Dictionary online, 2010).

Denis Cosgrove sums up what I consider the primary objective of mapping in his introduction to Mappings (1999, p.1), a collection of essays on the topic.

To map is in one way or another to take the measure of the world and more than merely take it, to figure the measure so taken in such a way that it may be communicated between people, places or times.

It is this goal that fosters ‘a stimulus to further engagements’ and as James Corner states ‘mapping is less to mirror reality than to engender the reshaping of the worlds in which people live’ which invites us to ‘discover new worlds within past and present ones’ (1999, p.213). This makes mapping an incredible tool for engaging with ourselves, other people, the environment and even different times. In a manipulation of scale, selection (choices and omissions), framing and coding we can disclose hidden relationships, inspire exploration and create new trains of thought (Cosgrove, 1999, p.9). Maps can be richly suffused with layers of information, some trivial, some intrinsic to human thought and progress. Their visual

3

impact and sense of closure is set in contention to more hidden qualities, as Cosgrove goes on to say:

‘their apparent stability and their aesthetics of closure and finality dissolve with but a little reflection in recognition of partiality and provisionality, their embodiment of intention, their imaginative and creative capacities, their mythical qualities, their appeal to reverie, their ability to record and stimulate anxiety, their silences and their powers of deception.

(Cosgrove, 1999, p.2)

The significance of extrapolating ‘to discover meaningful shape organisations’ (Corner, 1999, p.229) allows man to orientate and compose himself in reality; composure thus leading to contentment. It is this practicality combined with an appreciation for the visual beauty of maps that is conducive to immersing oneself in a map, a map that represents reality. Corner argues that reality is itself a concept that is not ‘given’. We only comprehend this space of “reality” ‘through our participation with things: material objects, images, values, cultural codes, places, cognitive sketches, events and maps’ (Corner, 1999, p.223). We have an ability to detach a sense of reality from the map-world (say primarily for reasons of orientation) and yet they are so intrinsically linked as representations of one another.

As human kind has evolved culturally and technologically, new ideas and techniques have developed as a result of development; from the pictorial and symbolic Neolithic and Medieval maps to today’s contemporary forms of digital mapping.

Early Cartography “Space” for the people of the Neolithic and Mesolithic eras was conceived simply as what they saw in the small portion of their visually accessible world. Emphasis was put on the symbolic and pictorial nature of the maps as a means of documenting their environment 4

(Casey, 2002, p.135). This helped promote communication and a means of navigating their world which in turn led to a sense of conquering the land. As the number of people and communities started to grow, new issues arose as people from varying cultures came into contact.

By the Early Middle Ages, the overlapping of legal obligations, as well as varying economic, political and dynastic rights, left people with a confused sense of external spatial organisation (Harvey, 1999, p.240). This uncertainty coupled with mythical and religious superstition created a new paradigm in which mapping had to represent and attempt to resolve these issues, primarily the sense of ownership, which for the time was defined by the qualities of interdependence, obligation, surveillance and control (Harvey, 1991, p.241).

One of the significant effects on mapping was the commissioning of Portolan charts, which chartered accurate coastal outlines achieving successful nautical navigation and thus more control for the privileged dynasty in expanding their territory (Casey, 2002, p.175). These and similar maps of the Medieval era tended to be sensuous, crafted pieces of art that reflected the quality of the kingdom and the superstitious world of mythical cosmology (Kaplin, 1984, p.47). The artist felt he/she did not need to represent features from a single vantage and that ‘[the artist] could render what he/she saw convincingly by representing what it felt to walk about, experiencing structures from many different sides’ (Harvey, 1991, p.241). This subjective process allows for greater insight into the mind of the artist and we can infer more about the culture, its values and their perceived priorities as a result.

The Renaissance that swept through Europe in the 14-17th centuries pioneered mapping techniques and customs that were diametrically opposed to its predecessor, emphasising the science of optics over the other senses and applied a fixed rigorous geometry that gave a false (and therefore bias) sense of natural harmony with God’s laws and the world (Harvey, 1991, p.244). Growth in military and world trade and made the 5

sense of Place vulnerable to Feudalism and so Renaissance thinkers sought functionality and practicality to determine navigation, property rights of land, political boundaries, rites of passage and transportation through a fixed, ‘objective’, elevated viewpoint (Harvey, 1991, p.245). This resulted in geographical knowledge becoming a prized commodity, with wealth, power and capital making its way to individuals. This led in turn to nationalism and parliamentary democracy at the expense of dynastic privilege (Harvey, 1991, p.245).

By the 18th century, increased competition between states and other economic units created pressure to rationalize and co-ordinate the space of transport, communication, administration, military organization and the more localized spaces of private estates and municipalities (Harvey, 1991, p.257). The Enlightenment sought a more practically rationalized world with better human welfare and equality in society that guaranteed individual liberties. The subsequent classification and purification of the natural world created a framework for capitalist social relations within which transactions of moneypower could operate smoothly (Harvey, 1991, p.258). It also kick-started the introduction and rise of the Ordnance Survey maps which would become the standard tool for navigation and orientation for the next two hundred years!

Changes in mapped space affected the profitability of economic activity, redistributing wealth and power, such as the production of transport (canals, turnpikes) and thus communication (Harvey, 1991, p.255). This creation of space involved a conquering of space which gave the Enlightenment more equality and security but, like the Renaissance, at the cost of creating an idealised perspective that constructed the world from a set individual viewpoint. From whose perspective then is the physical landscape shaped and is it truly the most honest and objective representation? This model is also problematic in that it can restrict the free flow of human and experience due to its highly rationalized configurations, creating and promoting, at its worst, a culture of surveillance and control.

6

‘If space is always a container for social power then the reorganization of space is always a reorganization of the framework through which social power is expressed’ (Harvey, 1991, p.255 citing Foucault)

These thoughts derive from Michel Foucault’s work on power and how social power distribution is represented; it confirms that maps are an incredibly powerful tool in addressing and communicating social power. Like Foucault, Henri Lefebvre challenges the concept of power through forced fragmentation of space into homogeneous Cartesian parcels. This creates a tension between the power of individual/social space, class/social space and private/state property (Harvey, 1991, p.254, citing Lefebvre). In tactile terms, the fragmentation of space was presented to a wider public through more economic and efficient printing techniques. The popular availability of maps, watches and clocks meant the Enlightenment period saw the coherent fusing of the concepts of time and space (Harvey, 1991, p.258). The masses could finally hold, see and understand objects that tied ‘pulverized’ space-time together.

Cartography through Modernity With the further compression of space and time, it is difficult to accurately map one without implying or affecting the other. Even though both used Cartesian subdivision to develop practical space and practical time, mapping their relationships with human engagement proved difficult. Conventional cartography could not map time structures: local stories, histories, events, capital flows, seasonal patterns, artistic movements, migration or human experiences during the day and the night. The architecture and objects man made were products of their time, rightly expressing the nature of the world they defined and went on defining.

7

If spatial and temporal experiences are primary vehicles for the coding and reproduction of social relations then a change in the way the former get represented will almost certainly generate some kind of shift in the latter. (Harvey, 1991, p.247, citing Bourdieu)

Population density is hypothesised when studying an aerial map based on the density of urban structure. But this can produce false perceptions of reality. For example, the Highland Crofters used to work the land until the Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries and were forced to emigrate or move to the Lowlands (Richards, 1985, p.50); bitterness is still felt, even today (Greig, 2010, p.180; for personal accounts of the Clearances see Mackenzie, 1883). It is possibly the single most significant event in Highland history and yet maps cannot do it justice. Brochs, crannogs, cairns, crofts and smaller buildings stay marked as misleading dots that represent civilisation on the map, from the earlier Clan communities to Crofting settlements. It does not expressly hint at the forced displacement or, for the few that do live there, at the strength of community or even the Gaelic language and traditions which were fundamental to their lives. Ignoring these intrinsic values suggests to me that Cartesian mapping is not as neutral or objective as we like to think; it omits and defines what it wants us to see like any piece of qualitative mapping.

In contrast to rural life, cities and urban life had become increasingly dependent, innovative and hugely complicated places to live. The culture, as a result of new cultural engagements, in the early 20th century had to cope with more and more information and the difficulty for mapping became knowing which data was relevant and how it should be mapped and presented. By the mid 20th century, transport technology had compressed space-time dramatically. From the steam train, to the car to the jet engine, transport made traversing and communicating larger distances more accessible and attainable. This opened up economic markets and whole new relationships which would lead to an ‘accretion of

8

complex cultural engagements’, simultaneously making the map an element of material culture and the representation of it (Cosgrove, 1999, p.9). Boundaries became more and more permeable as new relationships were formed and hidden ones discovered. Old values and social conventions of gender and class were flouted and broken.

People do not simply obey rules in their everyday activities but form habits and acquire views through a complex process of experience and incremental adjustment. (Bordieu cited in Shields, 1991, p.32)

With the development of mass publication production, photography and the internet, the start of the twenty first century has become the pinnacle of vision-centred culture. The focus and reliance on speed and efficiency in our daily lives has put a lot of pressure on instantaneous impact, no doubt assisted by a healthy consumerist and commodity driven advertising culture.

The only sense that is fast enough to keep pace with the astounding increase in technology is sight. But the world of the eye is causing us to live increasingly in a perpetual present, flattened by speed and simultaneity’ (Pallasmaa, 2005, p.21)

This flattening of our spatial and temporal worlds has confused how we perceive the space created by the Internet. It is not a space we can actively inhabit and so spatially it eludes us, yet it is tied temporally to us as we access, organise and navigate our lives around it like clockwork. The internet is based on rational rules, scripted algorithms originating from Cartesian logic and it frees us inasmuch as it makes our lives faster by permeating boundaries. Yet it also creates its own problems of space, territory and ownership with issues that require defining, synthesizing and comprehending; the power of the individual has 9

to share power with the network of individual power. The almost infinite compression of space-time and how we operate in the world today still presents the timeworn issue: how to map and present new data.

For a brief part of the mid twentieth century the objective of mapping boiled down to trying to creatively map hidden data, that is, data that cannot be quantified. Groups such as the French Situationists and Fluxus attempted to subvert art and acts of mapping through techniques such as Derivé (or Drift) and Detournément which have influenced the techniques of Drift, Layering, Gameboard and Rhizome, terms that Corner describes in his essay The Agency of Mapping (1999, p.234-244). The Situationists were not interested in mapping the terrain (topography, rivers, roads, buildings) but everything else that may have given an insight

into

hidden

social

structures;

studying

historical

events,

local

stories,

economic/legislative conditions, political interests, regulatory mechanisms, programmatic structures, the human psyche, imagination; using mapping devices that manipulated, coopted, enhanced or subverted frame, scale, orientation, colour separation, numerical coordinates, grid measures and indexes (Corner, 1991, p.214).

To distinguish so completely an external, a priori, real world from a constructed and participatory one would not only deny imagination but also be incongruent with humankind’s innate capacity to structure reciprocal relationships with its surroundings. (Corner, 1991, p.222)

The Situationists were, in particular, against Modernism and Functionalism. They challenged the control of urban planners; specifically the homogenization and zoning of Paris, which they believed prevented necessary gentrification of working class areas. Their opposition was the rigidity of modernism and the machine age, where mass production and the “spaces

10

of consumption” had taken away the freedom of the individual (Sadler, 1999). Modernism, with the principles of order, discipline and ‘power to society’ (although which society, remained an issue), was the natural evolution to the Enlightenment’s focus on rationalization.

Discipline proceeds by the organisation of individuals in space, and it therefore requires a specific enclosure of space. In the hospital, the school, or the military field, we find a reliance on an orderly grid. Once established, this grid permits the sure distribution of the individuals to be disciplined and supervised; this procedure facilitates the reduction of dangerous multitudes or wandering vagabonds to fixed and docile individuals. (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982, pp.154-155 cited in Shields, 1991, p39-40)

The Enlightenment’s legacy was the production of highly permeable free market space which helped the Western world develop thriving Capitalist economies. The negative effect of Capitalism was shaped by Modernism’s rigid order and strength in its power of control.

This, like the homogeneous space created in the Enlightenment, exaggerated the built environment’s sense of surveillance and totalizing vision (Harvey, 1999, p.253). Orwell’s 1984 pre empted conceptions of a Big Brother Society as a result of this totalizing vision getting out of hand. Cartography, particularly the Ordnance Survey, could not do this as it did not deal with the ‘subjective’ (even though, as I have highlighted, all mapping has to be subjective for it is a human representation of spaces defined by humans).

Absorptive Mapping Paraphrasing Pallasmaa’s view on the task of architecture (2005, p.46) (which paraphrased Merleau-Ponty’s thoughts on the paintings of Cézanne) portrays a clear and succinct impression of mappings function.

11

‘In my view the task of [mapping] is “to make visible how the world touches us”

Today, I feel we conventionally think of distinguishing between the neutral ‘objective’ forms of topographical representation from the more bias, ‘subjective’ forms which we consume in our visual-centred culture. There is an understanding that these freer, more personal accounts of representation hold a significantly larger portion of artistic license, and this seems to have cemented cartographic mapping as the most neutral and largely more accurate. I cannot contest nor even want to dispute the importance and beauty of cartography, however, its descriptive powers are not all enveloping and I want to draw attention to the areas that cannot be expressed by cartography.

‘Absorptive mapping’ is a term first introduced in the context of artistic representation by Casey in Earth Mapping: Artists Reshaping Landscape and is similar in its philosophy to phenomenological ideas of Genius Loci or ‘Spirit of Place’ (2005, p.149).

[Absorptive mapping] aims to capture the sense, the feeling, of a certain place or region, not in terms of its precise configurations, much less its position in striated world-space, but in terms of how it is concretely experienced by those who live there …Absorptive mapping is a matter of setting forth how it feels to be in a place, and more especially how it feels to be on the surface of the earth: to be with/in its immediate ambience, (Casey, 2005, p150)

Casey (2005) expresses the limitations and missed opportunities of single perspective, aerial cartography and illustrates this with an example: the horizon. When we find ourselves ‘lost’ in a landscape we need the horizon to orientate ourselves. Mapping with the horizon is an orientating effort that creates orienting and orientated places, it is integral to knowing where we are and where we are going (p.164). It gives us a sense of reassurance, strengthened navigation and offers composure; inhibiting the terrifying feeling of truly being 12

lost. Despite this, conventional cartographic maps today subscribe to the thousand year old tradition of single point perspective from above, where there is no horizon. We still use these maps to orientate ourselves but they do not convey the true essence of what it feels like to be on the ground, in the area and to feel what the place could be like.

Mapping this feeling is what Casey alludes to through the term ‘Absorptive Mapping’.

He talks of how an artist will map out the landscape by perceiving everything, drawing it in and absorbing it through all the senses, ‘to make it part of an inherent bodily knowledge’ (2005, p151). The artist’s articulation of their expression forms the process of mapping it back out. The success, as in any piece of art, comes not from the literal expression of the place but from how well the artist’s message has been transferred or translated. Artists attempt to translate this form of expression with varying media and reinterpret it with media that reflects the time. For example, contemporary artists today such as Richard Long, Andy Goldsworthy and Chris Drury tend to produce sculptural work primarily with natural, earth made objects whereas Dan Rice and Eve Ingalls (both mentioned in Casey, 2005) focus on painting. For Long, his work often centres on or from a walk. Work grows out of the process of walking, a primitive form of mapping that combines active participation and (with conscious objective) sensory absorption. His fascination with basic shapes and found materials is shared and investigated by Drury and Goldsworthy (see Figures 1, 2 and 3).

13

Figure 1. ‘Walking a Circle on Hoy Along a four Day Walk, Orkney’ (1992)

by Richard Long Source: The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography (2009, p.102)

Figure 2. ‘Ladakh I’ (1997) by Chris Drury Source: The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography (2009, p.35)

14

Figure 3. ‘Woven silver birch circle’ Hampstead Heath, London (13-14 December, 1985)

by Andy Goldsworthy Source: University of Glasgow, Crichton Campus

Goldsworthy’s association with a Place is determined by acknowledging and embracing the senses, defining the essence of the space. In his own words:

“For me looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. Place is found by walking, direction determined by weather and season...When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space around it. It is not independent of its surroundings and the way it sits tells how it came to be there...Often I can only follow a train of thought while a particular weather condition persists. When a change comes, the idea must alter or it will, and often does, fail.” - Andy Goldsworthy (Raymond Walter College)

The pieces of work that develop are bound to the nature of the space and are incredibly site specific. The time frame for ‘absorption’ for any artist is endless as images, thoughts and associations accumulate in the mind. However, for Goldsworthy, this persistent absorption 15

defines the finished artwork and the process is constantly challenged by ever changing physical conditions. Interventions in the landscape are left to the mercy of the environment which amplifies their temporality and their charged potential.

The subjective nature of art is implicit in most artists work. To represent an object, place or abstract feeling is marked by what the artist has seen, done, felt and their capability to translate this into a piece. Artists representing the landscape through painting, like Rice and Ingalls, make selections and decisions that illustrate and omit various bits of sensory information but aim to distil into an image the feeling of that place rather than the literal representation of it. Stephen Walter’s ‘Island’ (see Figures 4 and 5) is another example of painting to map the extents of a place.

Figure 4. ‘Island’ by Stephen Walter (2008) Source: http://www.stephenwalter.co.uk/drawings/drawa1.php

16

Figure 5. ‘Island’ detail by Stephen Walter (2008) Source: http://www.stephenwalter.co.uk/drawings/drawa1h.php

Walter superimposes his own highly personal, autobiographical accounts of London over a relatively accurate aerial cartographic map of Greater London, cut off from anywhere else in Britain. It illustrates urban myths, secrets, facts and fictions, through serious and flippant colloquial language and a subversion of symbols. It is like a medieval map in that it aims to document “key” events that intimates a shared history but also illustrates what life is like in London now, at the start of the twenty first century. It adopts a tourist guide feel but targets the London resident as an audience that may share similar, vested interests (British Library, n.d.). In ‘Island’ we attribute the map to an individual (Walter) which invokes a notion of healthy bias. Walter’s attempt to convey his London suggests that we should not take maps that we see every day for granted. It challenges us to rethink everyday maps that are so clean-cut and machine-like, is life really as neat? We challenge his map and see the endearing human idiosyncrasies, which helps to represent how we perceive space, as 17

humans with conscious abstract thought. The level of detail and emphasis on seemingly irrelevant information enforces an appreciation for the layers of urban living that go untraced and unchallenged in conventional mapping.

Narrative Mapping The notion of telling a story may seem erroneous when suggested that it too is a form a mapping, but the qualities of telling a story lend themselves to constructing visual relationships, as Ryan (2006, p.7) explains

‘Story is a mental image, a cognitive construct that concerns certain types of entities and relations between these entities. Narrative may be a combination of story and discourse, but it is its ability to evoke stories to the mind that distinguishes narrative discourse from other text types’

The case for mapping through narrative is incredibly powerful, especially in cultures that do not rely on more modern technologies to retain and store information. In fact, you could argue that our obsession with information and globalisation has left us apathetic, whereas ‘undeveloped’ cultures without information storage (a ‘data safety net’) are more precious.

Our apathy is reflected in the interconnectivity of the Internet and a growing trend to socialise online; empowering the individual yet ironically diluting individuality. Exploration and discovery online are not quite the same as the curiosity that inspires a speculative physical journey from reading or listening to a story. In The Agency of Mapping, Corner (p.225) asserts that, unlike Renaissance or Enlightenment cartography, ‘Exploratory mapping’

18

‘[is] less about asserting authority, stability or control and more about searching, disclosing and engendering new sets of possibilities. Like a nomadic grazer, the exploratory mapper detours around the obvious so as to engage what remains hidden’

In good storytelling, information is selected and disclosed at the skill of the storyteller. True or false, a story that maps a landscape can stimulate exploration, enabling potential discovery.

Songlines

Linking acts and footsteps, opening meanings and directions, these words operate in the name of emptying out and wearing away of their primary role. They become liberated spaces which can be occupied. A means of a semantic rarefication, rich in determination, the function of articulating a second, poetic geography on top of the literal, forbidden or permitted meaning. They insinuate other routes into the functionalist and historical order of movement. (Turnbull, 1996, p.20)

A variation and an excellent example of the beauty and power of storytelling are ‘songlines’ or ‘dreaming tracks’ which perfectly illustrate ‘a poetic geography on top of the literal’.

Songlines are invisible paths entwined in Aborigine tradition with the vast landscape of the Australian continent. According to Aborigine Creation myths, they were sung into existence by the Ancestors, totemic beings wandering the continent in the ‘Dreamtime’ (Chatwin, 1988, p.2). They scattered a trail of words and musical notes along their footprints over the land, laying a song/map as a means of communication between the most far flung tribes (p.15). Dreaming-tracks are passed down through each totem (or clan) generation to read the land like sheet music; singing the songs to navigate the Outback. Without the help of the 19

Aboriginal people, the European colonisation could not have utilised their culinary, medicinal, water, resource, hunting, food collecting knowledge or benefitted from the path finding routes for transportation of goods and knowledge, all of which were enforced by songlines (Kerwin, 2006, p.1). Sustaining peregrination with songlines strengthens tradition and marks territory but is also necessary to keep the culture alive.

The structural basis of these songs is temporal; the words and images are subordinate to the rhythm and meter of each song and so the song’s cadence varies as it reflects the geography and rhythm of the land (Chatwin, 1988, p.16). When descriptive stories combine with the rhythmic importance of meter, parallels with mapping as a poetic art are hard to dispute.

By singing the world into existence, the Ancestors had been poets in the original sense of “poesis” meaning “creation” (Chatwin, 1988, p.16)

Poetry as mapping Ekphrasis stems from the Greek ekphrazein (to recount, describe) which in turn is formed from ek “out” and phrazein “to speak” (Oxford English Dictionary online, 2010) and was a rhetorical term in Ancient Greece of detailed descriptive writing to evoke the experience of an object to a listener or reader.

The student of ekphrasis was encouraged to lend their attention not only to the qualities immediately available in an object, but to make efforts to embody qualities beyond the physical aspects of the work they were observing. (Welsh, 2007, citing Webb)

20

Poetry as a tool to map and represent a quality of the world, be it a space, place or event; is such a device. Through the medium of written word, poetry’s descriptive potential resists physical space (rural or urban), society, nationality, language, time (day or night) and is capable of straddling these boundaries through each individual poet’s skill and delivery. A virtue of poetry lies in the personal response of purely descriptive imagery where lack of physically visual information benefits the stimulation of the imagination. This non didactic style of representation is entirely subjective on the poet’s part but does allow the reader to infer their own feelings and decisions about the piece of representation. If the essence of Mapping is, as Cosgrove (1999, p.1) defines, ‘to take the measure of the world...in such a way that it may be communicated between people, places or times’ then poetry must be a powerful tool in representing and communicating visual and non visual measures of the world.

Another great strength of poetry is that of its ability to prompt reflection and contemplation, compelling us to reconsider what we thought we already knew. It can compose an observation so profound, yet so beautifully simple, that it sows a seed of intrigue, urging us to question many more associations of the observation. The practice of reading and writing poetry trains the mind to notice, reconsider and correct our frame of mind (McEntyre). There is a calming gratification in coming to a conclusion personally, as a result of well crafted poetic discernment.

In poetry we internalise the formal descriptive based imagery and hold it in our imagination. A poem’s lexicon, phrasing, structure and rhythm have the potential to reflect efficiently a complex feeling or idea in a single moment, through candid observation (McEntyre). Poetry does not rely on observation as its primary asset and is not confined to just the written word. The written medium is a form of communication we have grown reliant upon as Pallasmaa quotes in W.J. Ong’s essay Orality and Literacy (2005, p.24) 21

‘the shift from oral to written speech was essentially a shift from sound to visual space...print replaced the lingering hearing dominance in the world of thought and expression with the sight-dominance which had its beginnings in writing’

Communication through written speech developed artistically into poetry which Pallasmaa suggests ‘has the capacity of bringing us momentarily back to the oral and enveloping world’ (2005, p.25). Here he suggests that poetry can help resist the overwhelming world of the visual, to pull us out and offer us a chance to concentrate on our other senses. It is inextricably linked to the aural medium but opens up a whole new sense to explore by engaging the human mind with any subject (person, place, event, space, object or concept) to be mapped. Like songlines, the manipulation of the temporal dimension and structure of the poem can not only reflect the subject but can determine and compliment rhythm and metre. The aural nature of spoken poetry invests in articulation through enunciation and intonation that can play a dramatic part in the psychology and atmosphere of a piece; much like a piece of music.

Lyrical is more a quality of mind than of physical sound: at once quiescent and lively, bemused and dynamic. (Casey, 2005, p.162)

The intonation and dialect of a spoken poem can, in an instant, transport the listener into a culture where words and colloquialisms are infused with distinct connotations. Three of the most famous modern Scottish poets wrote in three very different languages but are all considered to reflect Scottish characteristics: ‘Sorley Maclean (Gaelic), Hugh MacDiarmid (Lallans, a form of ‘Modern Scots’) and Norman MacCaig (English). MacCaig’s style varied throughout his career but tended to employ allegorical landscapes and descriptive-

22

symbolical techniques to map relationships of inner and outer landscapes (Frykman, 1977, p.9). Roderick Watson (1989, p.6-7) examines MacCaig’s poetry and quotes him from Worlds: Seven Modern Poets (1974, p.162)

‘[there are] miraculous declarations to be found in everyday reality – if only we can open our eyes to them...of course one is influenced by, simply, everything. For the senses, the “five ports of knowledge”, are hospitable to everything, and into them sail, with luck, the most remarkable cargoes’

Mapping the senses

‘Architectural space is lived space rather than physical space, and lived space always transcends geometry and measurability’ (Pallasmaa, 2005, p.64)

Pallasmaa expands here on the notion of ‘lived space’ as the verb-essence of an architectural experience. The acts of entering, viewing out a window, occupying the sphere of a fire’s warmth, are activities that require human interaction with space defined by architecture.

The human element is inherent in ‘living’ and ‘lived space’ but different people (for example children, the mentally ill, the rural dweller, the urban dweller the physically disabled or oppressed minorities) will undoubtedly perceive and comprehend this space differently (Harvey, 1991, p.203). Poetry has the potential to express varying points of view as it can not only map human behaviour and our physical environment but our symbiotic relationship with it. How we feel it, absorb it and communicate through it are as important as how we navigate it visually.

23

Conclusion Poetry is sometimes seen as quite pretentious and often stereotyped as a ‘high art’ as many people find it difficult to relate to, or that they feel they require some kind of higher education to identify with it. If it is not accessible then it will be unsuccessful, as is true of all art. The weight of ‘artistic license’ a poet carries may make a poem harder to validate or trust and its personal nature (for the poet, as much as the reader) admits that it is a noticeably subjective medium. However, is poetry any more difficult to grasp than someone trying to read a cartographic map and not appreciating a religious, economic or dynastic context? This leads to several more significant questions: is poetry as mapping any less bias than Cartesian cartography? Has Cartesian based cartography, that informed the Enlightenment and Modernism, resulting in globalisation and a culture of vision-centred marketing that fosters a desire for instantaneous impact, blinded the public and architects from the “bigger picture”? If mapping through poetry is reliable, is it valuable? And if so, is poetry underutilised as a tool for examining and understanding our environment and cultural conditions, to aid the design process for architects?

Circumstances on how a project develops are conditioned by what is selected and prioritized in mapping the building’s “context”. The context incorporates environment (built and natural), economy, legislation, history, sustainability, culture and this is by no means an exhaustive list. It is the architect’s job to ask the right questions, from the right sources, to ascertain their relevance and importance within the overall context. To be considered an alternative, poetry must offer something that conventional cartography does not, which can be utilised and applied successfully. Where cartography fails, I believe poetry has the capacity to illuminate hidden questions as it prompts reflection and contemplation in the inquirer. It urges us to question many more associations of an observation that we would not normally consider, which may reveal something new. It may not produce immediate 24

revelations but poetry can still hint at a new direction, inspiring the inquirer to research and explore a different train of thought further.

Ideally, the successful synthesis of quantative techniques (topographical analysis) with qualitative techniques (narrative, poetry) should utilise the positives of both techniques to question, map and understand place.

References British Library (n.d.) Stephen Walter ‘The Island’ Curator Video [video recording] Retrieved April 4, 2011 from http://www.bl.uk/magnificentmaps/map4.html Chatwin, B. (1988) Songlines, 2nd Ed. London: Pan Books Ltd. Casey, E. S. (2002) Representing Place: Landscape Painting and Maps Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.

Casey, E. S. (2005) Earth-Mapping: Artists Reshaping Landscape, Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.

Frykman, E. (1977) “Unemphatic Marvels” A Study of Norman MacCaig’s Poetry, Goteborg, Sweden: Gotab, Kungälv.

Greig, A. (2010) At the Loch of the Green Corrie, London: Quercus Publishing.

Harmon, K. (2009) The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press.

Harvey, D. (1991) The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford: Blackwell Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space (Donald Nicholson-Smith, Trans.), Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (Originally published 1974) Kaplan, S. (1984) Understanding popular culture: Europe from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co Kerwin, D (2006) Aboriginal Tracks or Trading Paths (Dissertation) Retrieved April 4, 2011from http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/uploads/approved/adt QGU20070327.144524/public/02Main.pdf MacCaig, N. (1985) Norman MacCaig: Collected Poems, London: Chatto & Windus. The Hogarth Press Mackenzie, A. (1883) A History of the Highland Clearances, Inverness: A. & W. MacKenzie 25

Retrieved April 13, 2011 from http://www.yourphotocard.com/Ascanius/documents/The%20history%20of%20the%20H ighland%20clearances.pdf McEntyre, M. C. (n.d.) What Poetry Does Retrieved April 6, 2011 from http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/pdfs/WhatPoetryDoes.pdf Oxford English Dictionary online version (March 2011) Ekphrasis Retrieved April 10, 2011 from http://www.oed.com:80/Entry/59412 Oxford English Dictionary online version (March 2011) Mapping Retrieved April 10, 2011 from http://www.oed.com:80/Entry/113868 Pallasmaa, J. (2005) The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, 2nd ed. New Jersey: Wiley.

Raymond Walter College (n.d.) Andy Goldsworthy Philosophy Retrieved April 2, 2011 from http://www.rwc.uc.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/philosophy.htm Richards, E. (1985) A History of the Highland Clearances: Emigration, protest, reasons London: Taylor & Francis Ryan, M.L. (2006) Avatars of Story, Minneapolis/London: University Of Minnesota Press Sadler, S. (1999) The Situationist City, Massachusetts, MIT Press.

Shields, R. (1992) Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity, London: Routledge Spiegelman, W. (2005) How Poets See the World: The Art of Description in Contemporary Poetry, New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved April 9, 2011 from http://homepage.mac.com/acaruso/filechute/How.Poets.See.the.World.The.Art.of.Descri ption.in.Contemporary.Poetry.pdf Turnbull, D. (1996) Games in the Process of Architecture: Architectural Design Profile 121.

London: Academy Editions.

University of Glasgow, Crichton Campus (n.d.) Woven silver birch circle Retrieved April 6, 2011 from http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/image/?tid=1985_142 Watson, R. (1989) Scotnotes: The Poetry of Norman MacCaig, Aberdeen: Association for Scottish Literary Studies.

Welsh, R. (2007) University of Chicago, Keyword Glossary: Ekphrasis Retrieved April 11, 2011 from http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/ekphrasis.html

26

Appendix

27

28

29

30

31

32