That Line is Out of Focus

More Twentieth-Century American Poetics: Poets on the Art of Poetry by Dana Gioia (Editor), David Mason (Editor), Meg Schoerke (Editor).

Denise Levertov's "Some Notes on Organic Form."

In organic poetry the metric movement, the measure, is the direct expression of the movement of perception. And the sounds, acting together with the measure, are a kind of extended onomatopoeia—I,e., they imitate, not the sounds of an experience (which may be soundless, or to which sounds contribute only incidentally)—but the feeling of an experience, its emotional tone, its texture. The varying speed and gait of different strands of perception within an experience (I think of strands of seaweed moving within a wave) result in counterpointed measures.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this: " In organic poetry the metric movement, the measure, is the direct expression of the movement of perception." Previously Levertov had described how an experience leads to a poem, a brilliant description of inspiration and its route towards written speech. But this definition of measure as an expression of perception is way too fuzzy and comes very close to being some meaningless New Age poetics.

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