Driftwood 3

From Opel: Immersion Set for Distant Shores
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Go to cover page
Go to i. Introducion
Go to ii. The title
Go to iii. The totem
Go to iv. The far distant shore
Go to v. Driftwood
Go to vi. Dry tears
Go to vii. A circle of grey
Go to viii. To be found…
Go to ix. Information pack

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page 50

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In Frisbee's situation, alone on the sea for days, one can fall in love even with a little pebble. But to be specific, continuing the above poem, the most totemic thing that Bigney thought should have been the wreck of the wooden boat:

Woe to the mariner! his oak-ribbed bark
No more can serve as a protecting ark!

Their bark, of roots fantastic is possessed,
Wreathed in the form of a gigantic nest,
Where, in the wilds of ocean solitude,
Some monster bird has nursed her callow brood.

— Mark F. Bigney, "Wreck of the Nautilus"

Shipwreck on the sea.jpg

Optimistically, we don't really need Bigney to use words like "ebony" or "pebble" to guess that Syd may have used a poem like this as inspiration. Shipwrecks were in fashion in the late '60s:

  This year [1969] has brought the greatest hunt Britain has ever seen for gold and silver coins, jewels and cannon that have lain barnacled and mostly forgotten on the seabed where another generation's storms sent them.
  Skin-diving's big rise in popularity has sent hordes of amateurs on the under-sea gold rush.

"Ship Wrecks Yielding Fortune In Treasure", Beaver County Times

On the other hand this poem lacks a link with the earlier discussed Opel's totem.

But we will look at other Bigney's poems here, as if this one weren't enough, and even find out where the link lies: with a little faith, Bigney's book will be our "driftwood" on the sea.

sources →

Bigney, Mark Frederick. "Wreck of the Nautilus." The Forest Pilgrims, and Other Poems. New Orleans: J. A. Gresham, 1867. 84, 86. Print. http://www.archive.org/stream/forestpilgrims00bignrich#page/n85/mode/2up
"Ship Wrecks Yielding Fortune In Treasure." Beaver County Times [Beaver, PA] 22 Oct. 1969: A21. Print. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2002&dat=19691021&id=KW0yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=K7MFAAAAIBAJ&pg=7070,2661138
Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. http://www.pgmuseum.org/archives/details/907