THE CLOSING DOOR: Embodied Poetics and “The Figure A Poem Makes”

Abstract

Parallel to the unfolding process of a poem is the reader’s process of understanding the poem, which may or may not be conceived at all, depending on the skill and attention of the reader. If the poem unfolds by surprise, and the surprise promotes clarification, the result for the reader is the pleasure of understanding. Because readers arrive at understanding via surprise, the surprise is understood to be meaningful, and we “strike a line of purpose across it for somewhere” (Frost, 1939). But, questions remain: How do human beings strike a link of purpose across it? How does the physical encounter with poetry, perceived, turn into meaning, our understanding of physical experience, conceived?