Brian Henderson : Writing Philosophy

Brian Henderson's writing philosophy is perfectly expressed in his poem : IF LANGUAGE IS NOT STRANGE :

IF LANGUAGE IS NOT STRANGE to itself
how can it be its own?

A word is a hunger, a power spot
like a body, a sea

flooding itself with fish, sown
with currents, glimmers

Beyond its margin palms wave

Deep in the ground
it pulls minerals from rocks
and listens to the talk of fossils

is given
gills, feathers, fire, palm fronds
spun with the silk of memory

and when we are re-
membered through it shimmering, alien
depths, we can listen with our skins

The heart that flutters there is
almost heard

overheard

over the wash of sea-pull
womb-beat: the wings

of a hairstreak

Brian Henderson's works copyright © to the author.