PROVE ME WRONG, SUBSTACK

(ALSO, TREES)

Hello Stackers, how’s it going? This week I’ve been mostly thinking about deforestation. Specifically in Ireland. And specifically in the context and as an instrument of English Protestant conquest. Expect a lot of sexy chat about “wood kerns”, Brehon law, the Great Oak of Portmore, and why Edmund Spenser in particular can (still) fuck off. But I only got to forests and their destruction in the first place through Part Two of the Middle English poem ‘Pearl’, which I am still “translating”. In Part Two, our speaker awakes in Paradise which takes the form of a forest or woodland, about which he then rhapsodises. Because the forest and the freedom of the forest is a foundational loss for Irish persons, and because my reimagined speaker is an Irish Travelling man, this part of the poem has special relevance and meaning to my own version. For that reason, it’s important to me that I get it right.

Anyhoo, that’s not the real reason I’m bothering you. I mostly just wanted to say thank you to those who have taken the time to read and engage with Feliform, and to say hello to those who have just joined us. I don’t, as will become apparent, go in for a great deal of Substack engagement. For a variety of reasons, I just can’t. But I am going to make a concerted effort to be more communicative/ appreciative/ reciprocal. And this is going to involve, amongst other things, opening up comments on new posts. At least for now. As an experiment.

Basically, comments are off on my Stack for a reason. And that reason is not (surprising to relate) because I am an ego-involved nutsack. As succinctly as I can: I had a blog once before, a long time ago, which was ruined for me forever by abuse-hurling shitty men. I’m not joking. It got dark. And the difference is that now I’m too old, overwhelmed, and frigging tired to spend any portion of my day dealing with that. With the sad side-effect, that I’m not really enjoying any positive/ entirely neutral communication either.

So, for now, comments are open. Which doesn’t mean anybody has to comment, but you know, you could, if you wanted. My feeling is that this is a doomed experiment and I will almost immediately live to regret it. Prove me wrong, Substack, prove me wrong.