If writing is a form of exile then what is beautiful must be that which echoes something from the land I came from, some familiar line or phrase borrowed from the language of loss and memory. Whether that land is a place in time, in the world, or in some buried emotional reality, it is a meeting ground for many people. It must be a universal language. Something that lies at the root of what we all long to say, but do not know how.

—Neil Aitken. Three Takes on an Aesthetic and a Synthesis (excerpt)