The Language Ghosts (I)
p. 175
Texte intégral
Ghosts surround us constantly. We live with them; we walk through them and they through us, as we close a door, or make a sandwich. And this is what I’m interested in as a writer. The specters that can never be exorcised— that are more real than the solid walls we surround ourselves with.
I say all this with a type of certainty as though this has always been obvious. But of course this is all expressed through hindsight. None of this was really clear to me—it’s still a bit spectral now. It has become clearer, however, as I’ve juggled these ghosts in the course of writing a number of very personal books.
One was my collection of poetry, Neighbourhood of Memory, my first attempt at writing about Montreal, but also of coming to terms with my migration to Australia. It is in this book that I realised that I was haunted by the past, but also where I realised that I was haunted by the present. Ironically, these hauntings contaminated each other, and I carried the scars and the richness of living between languages.
Auteur
University of Notre Dame, Sydney (Australia). Keynote speaker.
Gerry Turcotte is Professor of English and Executive Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.
He is the author and editor of numerous publications including Jack Davis: The Maker of History (Harper Collins), Writers in Action (Currency), Masks, Tapestries, Journeys (CRITACS), Canada Australia: Towards a Second Century of Partnership with Kate Burridge and Lois Foster (Carleton University Press), Compr(om)ising Post/colonialisms: Challenging Narratives & Practices, with Greg Ratcliffe (Dangaroo) and Canadian Literature & the Postcolonial Gothic with Cynthia Sugars (forthcoming, Wilfrid Laurier Press).
His creative writing includes three collections of poetry: Neighbourhood of Memory (Dangaroo), Winterlude (Brandl & Schlesinger) and Hauntings: the ‘Varuna’ Poems (Five Islands Press). His novel, Flying in Silence, was published in Canada and in Australia and was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year in 2001. His most recent creative work is Border Crossings: Words & Images (Brandl & Schlesinger).
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