José Luis Borges, the famous writer, speaks to us in his short story entitled UNDR, of a people from the North, the Urnians, whose poetry can be summed up in one word, UNDR.
In one word?
Yes, its primary meaning, for the layman, the one who does not understand, is “The Word”.
Curious, how can a single word express all the nuances of poetry?
To hear it, the character is invited by the village poet to travel a lot.
Curious metaphor, and then?
Back among the Urnians, many years later, he tells his story. Then the Urnian poet pronounced the word UNDR which then meant “marvel”. And the simple hearing of this word transports him and seems to illuminate his whole life of wanderings and loves.
… so what?
So? I’ll let the author speak: “I took the harp and sang a different word.”
Story taken from The Book of Sand by José Luis Borges