Language-poetry-writing-literature
Language is the water element,
It’s water, it’s the sea advancing inland
It’s water, it’s the sea as a link,
It’s water, it’s the sea joining island to island,
And linking islands to continents.
Water is the language space, the space of languages
And poetry, writing, literature,
Are the canoe advancing over the water, over the sea, with its society, its culture, in the canoe, in the partly submerged hull of the canoe.
And it’s the canoe that needs the language, the water element, seawater, the fluid marine space,
In order to move forward.
It’s society, the canoe-society that today, all the while continuing to weave its vauvau fenua mat, gliding over the water, needs to produce, to create with language, with languages, whatever the language may be.
In order to move forward in its (hi)story.
Poetry, writing, literature, like the canoe, cannot move forward
Without language,
Without the fluid space of language, the liquid element of seawater, lagoon water, open sea water.
Poetry, writing, literature, need language, like the canoe does, need water, make sense only on water, at sea.
In French Polynesia more than elsewhere, poetry, writing, literature need languages, in order to set out and to travel the seas.
They can only have meaning through language, through the use of language, of languages that vary from one group of islands, from one culture, one society, one people to another.
Aesthetically and literarily, from one genre to another.
And artistically and poetically, from one orator or one pen, one tool, one type of material to another.
What matters, fundamentally, intrinsically, beyond language, a communicative tool,
Is language as a space, as a place, lagoon or part of a lagoon, sea, land, where words, poetry, writing, literature can navigate and take on meaning by questioning, rethinking, and remaking the surrounding world,
The world where there are only questions:
Over which water, across which sea, on which internal lagoon, to travel? And what form of transportation within and toward writing?
The question is no longer: “Which language to choose, or which language is suited to writing?”
But which language is the most convenient for what needs to be said about observations, questions, analyses as we move through and into our thinking, and for our reflections?
Poetry, literature, and writing use the liquid space of language as a place to journey, a place of experiences, discoveries, of creation, production, and bringing to fruition.
The watery tongue of the mothersea flows from the originary depths, entering the land masses and shaping tongues of land.
These tongues of land flow back toward the sea and compete against the watery tongue of the open sea.
These are not wooden tongues, nor rolling stones, but tongues of seawater, of airy sky, and of coral, growing and progressing to infinity over time.
Poetry, literature, these are the bays of languages, of tongues, of the sea advancing into the land, and the land into the sea.
Where everything that is written forms clumps of coral, fringing reefs.
Literature is the nibbling, the biting of the tongues into the shores.
Literature bites, nibbles into the land,
And that is how we hear the people of the land express themselves, grumbling, and even complaining.
Which lagoon of language (of languages) should we cross to reach and to progress writing? Which direction should we follow in the expression of our thoughts?
Which way should we choose, should we privilege in writing?
Writing is a journey, an invitation to journey within and through a language, a tongue.
Language, the place where the word is expressed and thought is written, is the place where poetry and literature travel;
Language, a fluid and moving space, in which and thanks to which writing moves, unfurls, travels, is the place where the word and writing are forged, sculpted.
And language, like the lagoon, the sea, the ocean, extends well beyond the canoe, the va’a, beyond the pahi, a ship or small boat that carries forward writing or the word.
And just as words can become a river mouth,
Writing, poetry, literature which meld together, come into being on the water, in the water, because of the water, are called currents in the water or floods of words flowing like water,
Where writings become islands of words in the lagoon of languages.
Writing, poetry, literature are created, travel with language, or with languages, on the tongue, in the tongue, through the tongue, and above the tongue, because of the tongue, and beneath the tongue.
And to write,
Is not to cast off from shore, or not merely to cast off from shore.
To write,
Is to seek out the mothersea, it is to go to the sea, toward the mothersea,
It is to seek out the lost space, cut off from the sea or from the mother,
It is to manifest a lack.
The desire to write is born from lack, from absence.
From the lack of language, from the absence of words. It is not having language, not having words to speak that paradoxically makes us write.
To write is to give yourself a language and lay claim to a language.
To write,
Is to return to the sea and to swim in language,
It is to dive into the lagoon of languages, it is to dive into the heart of language,
It is to seek out words in the cave of your origins, at the maternal source of existence, of beginnings and new beginnings.
Throughout your life and in practicing your language or languages, you write in the language of your mother or your peers, and/or, later, in the language of your tutors, trainers, teachers.
And you dive into writing, into poetry, into literature, the way you dive into the sea. That is how you bathe in language in writing, by writing.
But from which language lagoon should you write?
You write from the internal lagoon and from the open sea,
You write from all the oceans and from all the open seas, making your way, navigating the high seas and crossing the lagoon,
You write to swim in language.
Writing, poetry, literature are a swim in language in the lagoon of languages.
To write,
Is to dive,
It’s to dive into the lagoon of languages,
It’s to dive into and refresh yourself in your language or your languages.
To write,
Is to swim,
It’s to swim, to paddle in your language,
It’s to splash about, it’s to tremble in your language,
It’s to turn blue-lipped and to laugh riotously in your language.
To write,
Is to slide,
It’s to surf on your language, to hold fast to your language,
And let yourself sink gently into your language, to unwind into your language,
To write,
Is to adopt, to ally yourself, to attune yourself to your language or languages.
To write,
Is to travel in your language as much on the water, in the water, as out of the water.
But through which lagoon, through which language, to come to writing?
Through which sea and through which language lagoon to come to writing, to poetry, to literature?
You must set forth,
Language is the water element, the seawater that leads to writing, that gives access to writing.
You must set forth on a journey over the water, over your language, in your language, and through it, navigate to discover poetry, writing, literature.
Languages are merely lagoons, bays, inlets, linked together by currents, passes, channels.
And writings are the markers on the water, the clumps of coral rising above the water, and the guyots beneath the water, which are places and times to pause, where languages and thoughts are briefly anchored in the lagoon or in the oceans of language.
Writings are suspension points, they are words shouted out toward the horizon:
“Tero! Tero!” “Land! Land!”
“Tera’i’ō! Tera’i’ō!” “Over there! Over there!”
In what space of seawater or river water should poetry, writing, literature be expressed? Into which language or through which language should we enter to shout, to scream, to write?
What means of communication should we use to travel toward writing, poetry, literature? To travel into writing? To reach writing, through writing, to arrive at writing?
By means of which language, “from within which language,” should we write? Because can you only write “from within a language,” through the language that travels across writing, poetry, literature?
In order to write, you enter into language, you listen to what the language is saying, focusing your internal ear on the murmuring and wailing of the language or languages, and you write, or you talk about it from within the language.
But if you are to enter into it in one way or another and be able to write and to write about it,
Sometimes you have to force the language, carry out a forcing of the language or languages.
The key question, in fact, is: “what is your state of mind at the moment when you enter into the world of writing?”
Writing is a world, it’s the lagoon whose length and breadth you travel across,
Where language is the pathway that enters into the land and hollows out the land.
And at the same time that language is the path you follow, language is the expected voice,
The one that you must make ring out to announce yourself, to appear before others, to show yourself, to show what and who you are,
Your genealogy, your private self.
The languages of writing are multiple,
Each of us must simply choose a writing language.
The question being: “through which language and from inside which language can we reach writing, climb up to writing?”
Which lagoon of language should we cross to reach writing?
In fact, we must not be afraid to move through language, to cross the lagoon of the languages of writing.
Writing, like te ao, the light, the day, is contained in te pō, the darkness, the night,
And we move from orality, from oral writing to literature, to poetry,
The way we move from te ao to te pō and/or from te pō to te ao,
From te pō where the light begins,
From te pō the source of the light.
The light does not exist without te pō,
The light exists only in relation to te pō, and the fires of the volcano are in te pō of the land and of the sea.
Writing is the opening to the cave of our pō,
It’s the space, the gap through which shines the light of our pō, where rises and manifests the light of our pō.
It is a place where shadow and light meet and exchange.
“Le lagon des langues : poésie, écriture et littérature” copyright © Flora Aurima Devatine. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2024 by Jean Anderson. All rights reserved.