ëexistentially not quite placeableí,^50 a subliminal or sublime border-
land at the limits of perception, representation and translation.
Paulin sends us on a walk along the lines inscribed in his own
text while Kleeís picture forms ancient hieroglyphics from an older
civilization that, according to the arguments of Edward Said, has been
traditionally presented in European culture and Orientalist discourse
as radically other to the European sense of self.^51 To cross the lines is
to move onto the other side and into the unknown:
walking towards the bridgenot the dream of becoming
nor the dream of belonging
but the dream of Being (p.28)One cannot really be whilst constrained within the lines of language
since the individual is written before the individual writes. The poet
paces the lines looking how to cross the bridge to the other side; s/he
is both freed and imprisoned by her/his script. The metaphor of
crossing over the bridge to the other side suggests that ëthe dream of
Beingí or representing oneself, becomes a problem of regarding
alterity or the otherness in oneís self and in others.
Partition and Ideological Divisions
Paulin comments: ëIf you grow-up in a society that goes to the edge ñ
the edge of civil war ñ you are constantly thinking about it. That is,
how ideological divisions exist between people.í^52 A preoccupation
with lines and border crossings is introduced in Paulinís earlier poem,
ëLine on the Grassí, from The Strange Museum (1980). This poem
was written fourteen years before Walking a Line and it alludes to the
50 Paulin, ëTwentieth Century Poetry Lectureí, The University of Kent.
51 Cf. Edward Saidís Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1985). Cf. Robert Youngís
White Mythologies: Writing, History and the West (London: Routledge, 1990).
52 Paulin, ëTwentieth Century Poetry Lectureí, The University of Kent.