Spherical
Imagine the poem’s natural habitat is the mind; there it is free to run wild. There, the poem can be comprehended entirely: front and back, beginning to end, center and circumference.
That is why I say to understand the poem, you must already know the poem.
In its natural state, the poem has a 3 dimensional form, more or less spherical. However, to travel from one mind to another, the poem must become 1 dimensional, a linear sequence of phrases transmitted through voice and reading.
Any poem’s linear form can be minimally described as an alternating sequence of explicit phrases and the implicit connections between them.
For example, consider the 2 phrases
colorless green ideas
sleep furiously
Together they form a sentence, the beginning, perhaps, of a story about how certain ideas take their rest.
As more phrases arrive, an hypothesis will emerge. With each new phrase a clearer image of the poem will grow in the reader’s mind.
That is why I say the future will change the past.
By the end of the transmission the poem will have another home in another mind.
Charles Olson said “One perception must immediately lead to a further perception.”
That is why I say each phrase should improve the hypothesis.
Guilford, 2008
Weblished: 6 March 2008, 00:36
Related: art