Penny for your thoughts
A wish upon a fountain
As part of the elective module ‘The Other Voice’ we were to develop responses to a curated selection of interviews by editing and remediating oral histories, while gaining insight into the complex and nuanced ethical and practical implications of working with other people’s voices and the personal stories they have chosen to reveal.
To begin with I had a quick response to Jonathan Blake’s interview.
A wish upon a fountain, all-consuming
Lurking through the waters, unassuming
Is it alien, is it unclean?
Penny for your thoughts?
Pray tell me.
Sailors in waves, they’ll let you drown
You can’t have breakthroughs without breakdowns
Deconstruct, deal with it
Plan it without planning it
Pour it out, Keep them out
O wonderful wonderful fountain
Can you contain that?
A wish upon a fountain, out of hand
Lost in the waters- a Void Land
Is it dark, is it alone?
Penny for your thoughts?
Do pass it on
Highs and Lows, 7 years around
You can’t have breakthroughs without breakdowns
Deconstruct, deal with it
Plan it without planning it
Pour it out, Keep them out
O terribly painful fountain
Can you manage that?
Another wish upon a fountain, fortunate
Reaching through the waters, a duet?
Is it new, is it aware?
Penny for your thoughts?
care to share
Go ahead, open up, live on
You can’t have breakthroughs without breakdowns
Deconstruct, deal with it
Plan it without planning it
Pour it out, keep them out
Those grateful guilty guinea pigs
O beautifully lively wonderful fountain
Do remember,
it could just be me you carry in your waters
After reading the text “That’s not what I said” by Katherine Borland, I became aware of the challenge of interpreting oral history.
It made me think of mediums that are inherently identified as personal interpretations. It made me think of poetry. During sessions with Shabina Aslam we dabbled in verbatim theatre- stemming from oral history interviews. So I looked up Oral Poetry. I wondered how I could preserve the integrity of the words of the speaker while interpreting it. Could I have bite sized chunks of the interview playing at different times? Playing at once?
