MAYBE THIS IS WHAT THIS POET DOES
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A word is selected/found/suggested. Often suggested by others, it is attractive because it refers to current interests, has an exploitable shape, or a curious combination of letters, some or all of these.
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A poem is what is done to or made of the actual word, not out of its connotations or meanings, although these can contribute. The purpose of the new work is to suggest new connotations against, or in spite of, those already floating around.
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If a group of poems emerges, any one poem can be understood singly, or they can be gathered as small groups or seen as the totality of them.
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Often, the accepted word is on stand-by for new situations and variations as they might arise. These new situations are not programmed or planned, but just occur.
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The ‘subject’ is always the same: the discovery of the overlooked.
The ‘overlooked’ is always somewhere in the material properties of language, of the word. -
What is noticed is turned into an object (the poem) that invites the viewer to read/unpeel it and have the same experience of discovery that initiated the poem.
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This discovery is ‘actual’, not a description of it, and is in the moment of reading, of perception. This brings the poem and the reader into the same actual time and place.
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The physical work is scaled to the letter, the page, the book, the computer screen: between the hands, so to speak. This also contributes to the effect of presence, of reader and text occupying the same time and space.
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A side effect of this is a fleeting experience of wholeness, of presence. It could be that this is the main reason for the poem’s existence, and may be this poet’s chief motivation.
Alex Selenitsch
31st May, 2024