Domestic flights and foreign affairs: some thoughts on Here and Elsewhere

ABSTRACT

Tom Pow (b. 1950) is a well-known Scottish poet and prose-writer, author of 12 poetry collections, 3 radio plays, several childrens’ books, and more. Geographical themes have recurred throughout Pow's work, and he acknowledges being energised by the creative tensions between Here and Elsewhere: between the supposed (but now increasingly doubted) certainties of Here, fixed and enclosed, and the excitements, challenges and threats of Elsewhere, mobile and open. Such matters are explored in different and nuanced ways, through different prompts and sources, in the course of the essay that follows. Pow thereby exemplifies a distinctive kind of ‘applied geography’ that is constantly giving shape to his creative endeavour.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative writing
• Here and Elsewhere
• Homelands and foreign lands
• Poetry

Acknowledgements

I would like to mention three people, whose experiences and conversations about place have extended my sense of the possible; all are connected to the Spanish speaking world. Alastair Reid, who made use of the Home and Abroad designations in his book of essays, Whereabouts – Notes on Being A Foreigner (Canongate, 1987). Alastair became a good friend; I had the pleasure of editing his complete poems, Barefoot (Galileo Publishing, 2018). Professor Emeritus Mike Gonzalez has always left me feeling life is richer and broader than I had imagined, and Professor George Lovell has been generous in sharing enthusiasms and tapas bars with me over the years in Seville. Finally, I would like to thank Professor Chris Philo for inviting me to contribute an article to the Scottish Geographical Journal, and then for the generous and sympathetic way he encouraged it to completion. I am especially grateful for the patient care he has taken to ensure its presentation in an academic context.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 An introduction to Pow's work, including an earlier commentary on his deployment of themes of Here and Elsewhere, can be found at https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/tom-pow/.

2 For details, see, e.g., https://thegallowayagreement.com/thevillageandtheroad.

3 Christopher John McCandless, also known as ‘Alexander Supertramp’, sought an ever more remote, nomadic existence, eventually starving to death (it is inferred) in the Alaskan bush. His story is told in the book Into the Wild (Krakauwer, 1996) and in a 2007 film of the same name directed by Sean Penn.

4 See https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/cc30a159676148f39a914d1b7ebc8641.

5 Also see the brief evocation of Bourgeois's fascination with spirals, arguably growing from her one-time training in geometry, in ‘Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints and Books: Themes – Spirals, available online at: https://www.moma.org/s/lb/curated_lb/themes/spirals.html.

6 Literally, this term means ‘enclosed garden’.

7 Lovell is a geographer born in Scotland who worked for many years in Canada.

8 This symposium was organised by the New Statesman magazine and appeared in written form online on 26th April, 2023: see https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/04/new-age-tragedy-china-food-europe-energy-robert-kaplan-helen-thompson-john-gray.