Monday, March 7, 2005

Gregory Corso and words

Here's the poet Gregory Corso (1930-2001) on his love of words:

See, I know words--beautiful words from the past that people don't know, and it really saves the words. For instance, "scry" we got before, we understand what "scry" is. A pentacle maker--you know who he is? Karcist. K-A-R-C-I-S-T. O.K., that's one for you. Now, the wind that goes through the trees. You know what that is? It's an onomatopoeic shot. You know what it really is? B-R-O-O-L.

RK: In Old English?

GC: Yeah. Thomas Carlyle, really.
From a 1974 interview with Robert King, in The Beat Vision, ed. Arthur Knight and Kit Knight (Paragon House, 1987).

Karcist isn't in the online OED, but Google turns up several sites that confirm Corso's definition. Brool is in the OED, defined as "A low deep humming sound; a murmur." Among the several sample sentences is one from Thomas Carlyle: "List to the brool of that royal forest-voice."

comments: 2

gelci72 said...

What a great word!

I could say it over and over...brool...brool...

I'll have to remember that for the next boggle game.

Michael Leddy said...

Now you're the saver of brool. : )