When sailing the oceans or flying the skies, in order to get from A to B, it’s vital to take into consideration the deviation between True North and Magnetic North. True North is the direction in which the North Pole is located along the Earth’s rotational axis, while Magnetic North is the direction towards which the compass needle points.
North Magnetic Pole moves over time due to magnetic changes in the Earth’s core and in 2001 it lay at 81.3°N 110.8°W. By 2012 it had moved to 85.9°N 147.0°W. This is a 4.6 degree difference. Not much you think? Well, if you consider that every degree of latitude is 69 nautical miles, that’s quite a distance.
If you have all the provisions you need on board your vessel, and all the time in the world to sail around aimlessly until you eventually reach some or other piece of land, this won’t matter. But it’s quite different if you’re trying to reach a particular destination within a fixed amount of time. It may not matter at the beginning of your journey, but the farther you go without correction, the wider the gap between your destination and “somewhere” and the longer it takes to get back on course, which is why navigators have to account for magnetic variation when setting the heading.
With longitudes cutting through latitudes, the world is an ancient poem of many crossed lines, and the magnetic pull of North requires constant resetting of the compass to allow for the deviation from True, or the continual drift of polar North will wander the pilgrim on a never-ending quest for home. To travel the moving South/North lane without adjusting for deviation, will write a journey of nonsensical process, ending at a signpost marked “Lost.”
Latitude is paralleled with the staid Cancer Capricorn Equator, and even the less sober trotters on the East/West highways will always return where they started from.
A novelist could be considered a North/South navigator. Writing a novel or an article involves moving words across many lines and paragraphs allowing them to compose a travelogue that will chart a plot and reach a “True” destination with the least deviation. Many corrections are made, many words eliminated and, often, many added. Phraseology is created that will flow the reader from beginning to conclusion without disarray and within a sensible time span.
The novelist has the destination correctly settled on the composition and to deviate means getting lost in the work—a voyage without a home; a voyage of no return. In losing himself, he has lost the reader and the work has turned into a piece of nonsense. From the beginning, his course must be true and his heading constantly adjusted to allow for the charismatic pull of thoughts that may lead him off track.
The novelist is a north/south traveller, always having to remember the deviation—to subtract or add for east or west, will keep him going in the correct direction and get him safely home. Navigating a world of deviant truth requires the steadiness of a novelist to compose a body of comprehensible worth. Acknowledging True as lover of magnetic pursuit, the work requires a sober wordsman to prevent the course from losing the plot.
The poet is a skipper of a very different vessel on a very different course. Imbibing often (sometimes not too healthily) of magnetic life and words, his journey is precarious at best and compasses are merely something that collectors keep. The poet, inebriated, wanders with latitude, one or other foot trapezing off the parallel, pilgriming with delight, constantly lost in words, hands sometimes (but not necessarily) grabbing at portions of True to create poems of wondering adventure that magnetize him eventually home. Maybe. But it’s a lonesome journey only he needs to undertake and a home only he knows where.
We are all novelists, all sometimes poets, and in being both, our method of travel needs to be clearly decided before commencing the journey. Where are we going? Why? Do we have passengers on board? When do we want to get there? Why?
The poet’s response would be “Does it matter?” The novelist’s: “Yes!”
