Klee will say, eine nebenwelt [Ö].í^73 Lyotard fuses the Romantic
sublime and avant-garde art together with Paul Kleeís notion of a
Zwischenwelt (a universe between) and a Nebenwelt (a universe
apart).
Fighting against the odds and in acts of self-preservation, Klee
and Paulin choose to turn away from the images of destruction around
them. Both artists become exiles from what in ë í Paulin calls ëa
world that doesnít add upí (p.29) where
all we can do
is try to avoid
the heavy the hard
and the poisonous winds
those who try to confront them
are doomed to more than disappointment (ëOn the Windfarmí, pp.50ñ1).Avoiding the ëpoisonous windsí or the destructive storms of political
violence, the artists attempt to nurture their art in a more sheltered
realm or Nebenwelt, a utopian space where their work will not wither.
Although Walking a Line (1994) signals a move away from the
overtly political issues of Liberty Tree (1983) and Fivemiletown
(1987), this does not mean that the poetry necessarily becomes a-
political or inhabits a transcendent and vacuous utopianism with little
bearing on reality. Paulinís man in ëThatís Ití has the capacity to
metamorphose reality and his place in the world. The poem charts the
revelation that language can transform and break across conceptual
frontiers. The use of hieroglyphs from other cultures, as represented in
Arab Song and ë í, demonstrates an awareness of the alterity
that is at the beyond of Western thought. Paulinís final poem ëThatís
Ití is positioned at the limits of foundational thought as the speaker
floats as though seated upon a magic carpet in a pool of light and
illusion. The poem offers us an act of imaginative transgression that
questions the very foundations of representation and this has political
repercussions.
Walking a Line denies the neat divisions drawn up between
poetry and politics, the lyrical poet and the politically engaging poet.
73 Lyotard, ëThe Sublime and the Avant-Gardeí, Postmodernism: A Reader, ed.,
Docherty, p.249.