THE PICTURESQUE

When is a poem not a poem, class?

I once knew a man who was fascinated by communication. He took himself to all the great libraries in all the great countries of the world and barricaded himself behind a tower of tomes until he had a working knowledge of the language of that country. He eventually came to be able to hold a conversation in 24 different languages. He was a very learned man, but he wanted more knowledge.

And so, he became obsessed with discovering how each language produced poetry. And because he was a single man, he studied poems of love and devotion, to try and fill the void that the lack of these things left in his life. Straight away, he began his travels once more and shortly found himself in Egypt. He had intended to visit Egypt on his previous trips but had never managed to, and so on his first few days he did what any tourist does and visited the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids, and dove into the rich history of the land.

But one thing entranced him more than anything on that visit.

Hieroglyphics.

He was completely in awe of this language of pictures, almost like a comic strip but centuries before they existed. And he found himself wondering if the Ancient Egyptians had written poetry in this language of images, and he found they had. Not only that, he found that the poems that were written were not written by an elite who had access to the best education, but that local communities had come together to create poems about love and life. Many scholars today are shocked by the quality of the writing of what many would describe as ‘peasants’.

Why is this so incredible?

It’s because pictures have always been a big part of human existence, first in etchings, then paintings, then photographs. After all a picture paints a thousand words, as the saying goes. Maybe that’s why, despite all the conversations he has had with Monty Straight, and all the warnings his friends must have spoken to him, Khalil Longfellow still finds himself in the dangerous situation he is in.

A picture may very well paint a thousand words, but a thousand words can’t describe the picture that he now finds himself emblazoned within. And that is the problem with obsessing over words. Words are amazing things, and the sheer amount of writing in the world is incredible, but if you become enslaved to the way of the word you never see the world for what it is, only for what you can write about it.

My friend died alone, never having loved and only having read about love. Isn’t that sad? Would that make you happy Khalil? A facsimile of the real thing? I would go for the real deal any day of the week. So you see Khalil, if you carry on down this road you have paved for yourself, it will only end in dismay.

Learn to live on more than just words, learn to see the picturesque.