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Geographical/environmental influences

hmmnmm said:
Rubbing it in.
I feel a poetry challenge topic in that phrase.

You probably don't want to hear about The Radio Station (almost all country almost all day, except for Casey Kasem's Countdown).
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We had one of those and it moved out of town, along with the only grocery store.
I write poetry and dabble in photography but, unfortunately, small town life tends to be a bit limited on inspiration for either.

Country? Bless your poor heart...
 
hmmnmm said:
I exaggerated a bit about the country - but not much - I love the old stuff from the 50's and 60's, but they try to keep current and they play a lot of this newer country which I despise because it's so fake. It isn't that this is such a small town and so lacking in amenities. For a small town it's okay, but it's the ONLY town within a wide radius. We have groceries and bars and radio station and clothing stores and a couple restaurant and a library... but if I need new guitar strings (or wanted to go to a bookstore) I have to travel about 150 miles - or order on the internet. This also has good news and bad news aspects. It's easy to get comfortable, sucked into the pocket. It's a small town, small world, and yes, somewhat small minds, and there's a danger of letting that small world convince you that it is the only world there really is. Especially the winter...

Again, I suppose part of the point - I wonder if the pocketed away real life circumstance somehow replicates in the written words that are presented to the big internet world and somehow the two just don't seem to connect (I guess I'm thinking more the prose 'stories' but maybe internet in general).

Maybe there's a tendency to get so enveloped in what one enjoys writing that you lose the appreciation for what others may not appreciate reading?

Good morning!
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speaking of which, i think there are about 15 poems in this one post that i know i'd love to read.

:rose:
 
I am an English rose born to the land
of green country lanes that still exist
in this world of speed is everything.
where hollyhocks and honeysuckle
bloom in gardens and cats sleep
in a gentle sun while bees drift by
making honey and all that is heard
is a distant bell from a country church.
 
hmmnmm said:
I think there's something to it.
Plenty of exceptions, but I think a general case holds something.
I've wondered this for some time. After all, if speech and dialect and accent can be partly attributed to environs, why not written voice?
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I don't know if I have any regionalisms in my writing. Probably. Certainly if I write at all about setting, that is influenced by where I live, even when I am writing about someplace I've traveled to. I see Amsterdam, for example, as a middle-aged guy from the US Pacific Northwest.

I notice things in other people's poems sometimes. There's the obvious stuff, like how all you people outside Emerica want to spell things with unnecessary u's in them, like colour or honour, or extraneous e's, like judgement for judgment. And let's not even talk about whilst or spelt.

But the regionalisms are what stand out the most. Maria referenced Moon Pies once and I had no idea what she was talking about. I happened to be in South Carolina at the time and walked down the hall to the vending machine and, sure enough, there they were. We don't have them in Seattle, 'least not where I've ever seen them.

Sometimes the regionalisms can be disconcerting or inadvertently funny. TRM, for example, once had a poem here titled "A Girl Grows in Red Hook," which was perfectly reasonable to him, as he was referring to a neighborhood in Brooklyn. The title had a completely different connotation to me, as the word "Redhook" to me means a Seattle-based brewery (try the ESB, it's really good). My first impression was that it was going to be a poem about underage (but classy) drinking. :rolleyes:

My favorite example of this was when I used to own a bookstore. We had a Portland (OR) author coming in to read from his new mystery novel that happened to be set in Seattle. All of us in the store read his book. In one scene, there is a car chase that goes over the George Washington Memorial Bridge. None of us had ever heard of it, and I've lived in the Seattle area my entire life. We finally looked on a map and found that that is the official name of what everyone here calls the Aurora Bridge (Aurora Avenue/SR 99 is the highway that crosses the bridge).

I would guess that the most pronounced regional influence in my writing is that it rains a lot.

It really does. Don't move here. You won't like it. ;)
 
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Tzara said:
I notice things in other people's poems sometimes. There's the obvious stuff, like how all you people outside Emerica want to spell things with unnecessary u's in them, like colour or honour, or extraneous e's, like judgement for judgment. And let's not even talk about whilst or spelt.
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We can't help it if you are a u-ist. Come home to the mother tongue and add a u to colour. You know you wanna.
 
Sara Crewe said:
{stifled giggle}
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I am quite used to women giggling at me. I like to think it is because of my finely honed sense of humor (or even humour) and my razor-sharp wit.

It just seems less emasculating that way. :rolleyes:
 
Tzara said:
I am quite used to women giggling at me. I like to think it is because of my finely honed sense of humour and my razor-sharp wit.
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It is. It makes us bleed giggles.
 
Sara Crewe said:
It is. It makes us bleed giggles.
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Oh, gosh, I hope not.

It's actually more of a depilatory wit than a razored one. I don't normally like to say that. It don't 'zactly sound manly, y'know. :cool:
 
Tzara said:
Oh, gosh, I hope not.

It's actually more of a depilatory wit than a razored one. I don't normally like to say that. It don't 'zactly sound manly, y'know. :cool:
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Okay. For some reason, I feel like I should tell you that I have sensitive skin.
 
Sara Crewe said:
Okay. For some reason, I feel like I should tell you that I have sensitive skin.
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I would ask where, but that somehow seems indelicate. Besides, I must have bitten my lip or something, 'cuz the damn blanket seems to be damp again. :)
 
Tzara said:
I would ask where, but that somehow seems indelicate. Besides, I must have bitten my lip or something, 'cuz the damn blanket seems to be damp again. :)
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Hmm, now I am wondering if telling you that it's on the inside of my wrists would some how be a disappointment to your well lubricated imagination. ;)
 
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