the lead of a certain culture with the promise of ëdawní (coming from
the East) or a fresher perception that is centred around images of
bodily functions. The ëwheeze and piss/ of dawní suggests a fleshy or
even asthmatic dawn that puffs and blows as it gets up in the morning.
These words are comparable with ësplitteryí and ësplatteryí as they
smudge the clarity of the visual picture of the poem suggesting a
ëvaguenessí which deviates from the accuracy of the line which in
Kleeís words is: ëthe pure representation of the linear elementí.^56
There is a sense of boundaries breaking down and seeping over in the
poem. The line on the grass is no longer quite so clear cut and the sun
ëchuck[s] itselfí unceremoniously over the horizon, intruding on the
carefully measured line. The form of the poem is not end-stopped or
full-stopped, and there is a sense of the line not halting but continuing,
running away with itself leadless or of meaning running beyond the
poem. The poem reads as a sentence that does not stop, leading into a
dawn which is signalled at the ëendí of the poem with the effect of
attempting to acknowledge a beyond of discourse.
Paulinís poem ëAlmost Thereí (p.21) imagines a blurred edge
where he attempts to chart a frontier between sense and nonsense,
rational and irrational realms, vocalizing the beyond in poetry or
getting to something which is difficult to articulate. Writing it out a
ëcouple more timesí might have meant the speaker had ëcracked the
thingí instead: ëthereís a kind of glitch in what youíre saying.í The
poem presents us with images of the crack as a thin line splitting a
surface, fracturing something or creating a gap in-between, a place of
dÈlire along which the poet treads in Walking a Line. The crack in
poetic language is accompanied by the word ëglitchí which is ëa
sudden irregularity or malfunction (of equipment)í.^57 At this point in
Passage to India and in literature in English by Indian writers such as Amit
Chaudhuri in his novel A Strange and Sublime Address (London: Minerva,
1991). Chaudhuri wrote his PhD on D.H. Lawrence and the body while at
Balliol College, Oxford where he was under Paulinís supervision. How far the
nonsensical world and the nonsense poetry of Alice in Wonderland, emanating
from the historical presence of Lewis Carroll at Christ Church College, has also
been of interest to Paulin in Oxford is a further matter for speculation.
56 Klee, On Modern Art, p.53.
57 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, ed., Della Thompson
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1995, 9th edn.), p.576.