In a recent RSA-sponsored collaboration between poets Melanie Challenger and John Kinsella (here), the word “brink” makes an appearance. Mel is a poet interested in, amongst other things, mining the English language for resonances associated with place and landscape. She reminds us that “brink” is an “East Anglian Fen dialect term for riverbank.” Attempts to evoke the Fens, and in particular the uneasy relationship between man, land and water in that landscape, have challenged writers and musicians in recent times. Perhaps the most famous example is Graham Swift’s prize-winning novel Waterland, but other Fen-dwellers have undertaken similar endeavours – Robert Macfarlane’s recent radio essay looked at musical (The Great Fen Project), and poetic (Benjamin Morris) elaborations on the region.
The term “brink” remains in common usage, although it is now perhaps most often used in a metaphorical sense, indicating not geographical but temporal transition – a point (or, more accurately, moment) of no return. The OED confirms that “brink” refers to an “edge, margin or border,” often involving a steep drop, and that its secondary sense relates specifically to “the edge of land bordering a piece of water.” A further historical usage has the term refer to the edge, or brim, of a vessel. It can be no coincidence that Brinkley is a Cambridgeshire village, given that county’s shifting lands, multiple waterways and numerous boat-dwellers.
The various uses of “brink” are drawn together in the related word “brinkmanship.” The latter term denotes a brave (or foolhardy) attempt to advance “to the very brink of war” without actually engaging in battle. But the addition of the “-manship” suffix creates a portmanteau word that combines “brink” (point where land meets water), man (person negotiating the land / water borderline) and “ship” (means of making a transition from one element to another). “Brinkmanship” might very well be used to refer to our current attitudes to climate change, concerned as we are with tipping points and projected futures. But the term has additional implications if we borrow Mel’s Fenland use of “brink” and return “brinkmanship” to its roots in the negotiations between man and landscape. The two interpretations of brinkmanship suitable for our times – the arrival at the point of (climate) war, and a means of working with the natural environment – are not of course unrelated. Particularly if we factor in the issue of sea level rise…
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