Friday 6 January 2023

THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem

  

Rob Ayling, yer Gonzo Grande Fromage, writes:

"Thom the World poet is an old mate of mine from way back in my history. Even pre-dating Voiceprint, when I was running "Otter Songs" and Thom's poetry tapes and guest appearances with Daevid Allen, Gilli Smyth and Mother Gong are well known and highly regarded. It just felt right to include a daily poem from Thom on our Gonzo blog and when I approached him to do so, he replied within seconds!!! Thom is a great talent and just wants to spread poetry, light and positive energy across the globe. If we at Gonzo can help him do that - why not?"

ENGLISH IS A POLYGLOT LANGUAGE
with strains and traces of Anglo-Saxon,French,Spanish,German,Latin
and specific terms from law,politics,various occupations
'as well as neologisms (many coined by William Shakespeare)
Various invasions of England imported new words and altered how they were pronounced/spelled
Geographically,of course English came from England.It was exported as part of the British Empire-
resulting in over one billion people speaking English-whether patois or High Church
or various variants  and accents /diverging every village ten miles apart.
History is a language too-pronunciation changed
from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Milton to Blake to today's diverse argot.
Warwickshire accents inflect Shakespeare's spoken lines
English sounds differently when strained via Welsh or Scottish brogue
And the Irish influence-from Bards to Blarney-is profound-Sheridan,Yeats,Joyce ,Behan..
English is both a written and spoken language-with different rules for oracy and literacy
You recognize its dulcet strains in sung folk lyrics,its Anglo-Saxon roughness in legal contracts
Portmanteau words  and malapropisms animate its active application.English is England.

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