Palilalia
Feb 2008 · Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series Book 19 · McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Ebook
88
Pages
Tools
info
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
Palilalia is disordered speech. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this lesser known vocal tic is "an involuntary repetition of words, phrases or sentences." Sister to echolalia (repeating what others say), and distant cousin to the more forbidding coprolalia (the involuntary use of obscene language), palilalia can feel, on the one hand, like an affliction to be suppressed, and on the other, like a kind of meditative mantra that focuses and intensifies your thought. "Your repetitious tics," the ghost of the poet's mentor, Northrop Frye, tells him, are " the ecstatic rhapsodist's / St. Vitus Dance, slangster's whizzle / and conjuration, philologist's hullabaloo." It isn't a question of how to stop them, but of finding how far they will take you. Jeffery Donaldson offers poems about Tourette's Syndrome, about his loves and blessings, about the erotic life as flavoured by all these, and about the grace of a stillness in the midst of so much mental noise. Paul Val�ry said that a poem is never finished, only abandoned. All poets have palilalia, or should have....
Palilalia is disordered speech. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this lesser known vocal tic is "an involuntary repetition of words, phrases or sentences." Sister to echolalia (repeating what others say), and distant cousin to the more forbidding coprolalia (the involuntary use of obsc...
Discover more
About the author
Author of two previous collections, Waterglass and Once Out of Nature, Jeffery Donaldson teaches poetry, poetic theory, and problem-based learning at McMaster University.
Author of two previous collections, Waterglass and Once Out of Nature, Jeffery Donaldson teaches poetry, poetic theory, and problem-based learning at McMaster University.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
