{"id":3300,"date":"2024-05-19T23:14:56","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T23:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=3300"},"modified":"2024-05-20T02:32:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T02:32:49","slug":"the-insect-poets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=3300","title":{"rendered":"The Insect-Poets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Cicadas.heic\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Cicadas.heic\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3301\" style=\"width:573px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In all the extravagant noise about cicadas \u2013 co-emergence of different \u201cbroods\u201d numbering in the trillions, Brood XIX and Brood XIII named like two massive gangs &#8212; does anyone hear poetry?\u00a0\u00a0It could be a giant poetry slam \u2013 sound coming from tree crowns, branches, bark, ground as unseen creatures exalt at the top of their lungs.\u00a0\u00a0What we hear is the plangent song, the voice of desire and urgency between deep underground and return.\u00a0\u00a0No surprise, then, that Plato told a story of cicadas turning into poets; later, the creature became a doomed romantic type, its month of life marked by consummate singing, love, starvation and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But pay attention to the voicing. Poet Alice Oswald says the Greek mind listened hard and heard the \u201cthin piping quality that is common to old men speaking.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0In a CBC radio interview in 2016, Oswald continues, \u201cI have interest of the cicada as being the insect that poets turn into, if you going on speaking and speaking and speaking, you become nothing but a voice.\u00a0\u00a0A high continuous voice.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trillions of poets living underground for 13 to 17 years, co-emerging, trying urgently to convey their one untranslatable song. Imagine!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In all the extravagant noise about cicadas \u2013 co-emergence of different \u201cbroods\u201d numbering in the trillions, Brood XIX and Brood XIII named like two massive gangs &#8212; does anyone hear poetry?\u00a0\u00a0It could be a giant poetry slam \u2013 sound coming &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=3300\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[232,1441,1439,1442,1241,1438,1443],"class_list":["post-3300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apocalypse","tag-cicadas","tag-grasshopper","tag-griot","tag-metaphor","tag-poets","tag-prophet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-Re","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3300"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3306,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300\/revisions\/3306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}