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Comment by Place Link 3 hours ago

馬丁·路德對艾克哈特作品的了解一直是學術討論的焦點，毫無疑問，艾克哈特的神學對路德產生了影響[4]。但除了這種哲學上的承繼之外，艾爾福特的環境是否也影響了艾克哈特與路德的思想？我們是否可以識別出某些與艾爾福特環境獨特相關的聯繫，將艾克哈特與路德跨越時空地連結起來？

語言的影響？

語言對於艾克哈特與路德的工作至關重要，因為他們都致力於推動宗教與哲學知識的語言通俗化。艾克哈特將拉丁概念轉化為德語詞彙，並創造了許多新術語，影響了德語哲學，直至黑格爾與海德格爾。 

“梅斯特·艾克哈特無疑是德語中全新哲學與神學術語的創造者。”（Knaebel 2002, 21）[5] 

克納貝爾（Knaebel）強調，艾克哈特在這一過程中運用了「德語語言天賦」（génie propre de la langue allemande）（Knaebel 2002, 20）。因此，艾克哈特的工作不僅僅是翻譯，而是一場真正的哲學創造，塑造了適合中古高地德語語言與認知特性的術語。

法國地理學家雅克·萊維（Jacques Lévy，2013，2021）所創造的「共空間性」（co-spatiality）概念，定義了一種特定類型的「空間間性」（interspatiality），即不同空間之間的關係。「共空間性」基於這樣的想法：空間作為一種多層次的現實，可以根據不同的度量標準（即距離管理策略）來運作。此外，由行動者透過現實或想像的空間行動所創造的每一層空間，可能——也可能不會——與其他佔據相同物理範圍的空間層次「垂直地」互動（Lévy，2003，第213頁）。「共空間性」指的正是這種在同一物理範圍內兩個不同但重疊的空間之間的「垂直」聯繫。然而，兩種現實同時存在於同一個「此在」並不足以構成「共空間性」的互動。正如萊維所強調的，「共空間性」並不是兩個空間共存的機械性或顯然的結果（Lévy，2003，第213頁）。事實上，即便在不同空間現實間存在接觸區域，人們仍可能學會「看不見」其中一個或多個空間，從而忽視某些社會世界的元素，因為他們認為（或被教導認為）這些元素與自己無關。這一現象在中國·米耶維（China Miéville）所著的科幻小說《雙城》（The City and the City）中被藝術性地描繪，也曾在全球多個實施種族隔離政策的政權中被強制施行（Lévy，2021）。事實上，「共空間性」的地理學概念在芝加哥學派的「一座城市中的多座城市」研究中得到了具體體現。根據這一研究，即便社會行動者共享同一物理範圍（即城市空間），他們也未必居住在「同一座城市」。

那麼，兩個不同但重疊的空間如何發生接觸呢？根據萊維的觀點，「共空間性」的關係只有透過「開關」（switch）這一第三元素才能實現。「開關」是能夠連結兩個不同空間層次的場所。例如，萊維常舉的例子是一座火車站，它「讓旅人從受鐵路網約束的空間轉換到更為縝密的城市街道網絡」（Lévy，2021）。換言之，「開關」使人們得以從一種距離管理策略轉換到另一種策略，進而從一個空間切換到另一個空間。

UrbRel 應用

「共空間性」透過「開關」的概念，也可以追溯到前現代時期。以中世紀印度的紀念性階梯井（stepwells）為例，這些場所最初是城市社群的主要水源，但後來逐漸被賦予宗教意義，成為進行儀式與奉獻活動的空間。在實踐與敘事中，這些空間為不同宗教與社會群體——尤其是女性——所共享。其他城市「共空間性」的例子，還包括那些同步被不同種族、文化，甚至宗教背景的群體所使用的朝聖地。

城市空間由多重重疊的空間構成，這些空間源於不同群體對空間的想像與使用，並因不同行動者的移動而變得複雜。宗教為我們理解這一現象提供了一種有趣的視角，因為宗教既是一種透過儀式使用來標記空間的技術（無論是短暫的還是持久的空間神聖化），也是一種文化技術。

2020年，UrbRel 年度研討會的主題即為「共空間性」，探討那些被不同群體在同一時間或不同時期，以不同方式生產、使用與詮釋的場所與空間。這一概念促使我們反思：(i) 不同群體對同一空間的重疊使用或詮釋如何被機構、個人與團體調節，以促進或避免「共空間性」互動；(ii) 時間性在「共空間性」互動中的作用；(iii) 這種特定的空間交錯如何促使宗教與城市變遷。

Comment by Place Link yesterday

共時性（Co-Temporalities）

「共時性」的概念建立在一個洞見之上：時間是一種文化建構，因此是相對的，依賴於具體的社會情境。從這一視角來看，時間性從單一性轉變為多樣性，受不同競爭或合作因素影響，從而決定「共時性」如何互動與共存。特別是在都市空間中，不同時間性往往會產生衝突與變遷，並伴隨著不同群體與國家機構所經歷的交錯節奏。「共時性」使研究者能夠掌握城市中這些複雜的時間動態，進而更好地理解城市性與時間的關係。

「共時性」的概念是以「共空間性」為模型，後者由萊維在2003年提出，以描述空間的多層次性。萊維通過「空間間性」的概念，闡述了不同現實間的重疊與互動。同樣地，「共時性」提供了一種分析方法，來探討時間維度中的「共空間性」，即城市中不同時間性與時間實踐的重疊。這一方法建立在「共時性」必須「發生於某地」的假設之上，因此，時間具有多重層次或結構，並且這些層次可以共存。在城市空間中，這一點尤為明顯，不同群體以不同的方式經歷著各種時間形態。

這一方法部分受到亨利·列斐伏爾（Henri Lefebvre）的城市節奏分析的影響（Lefebvre，1992，遺作出版）。列斐伏爾致力於分析城市空間的節奏，以及這些節奏如何影響居民的日常生活。他與妻子兼合作者凱薩琳·瑞居利耶（Catherine Régulier）共同研究了時間、空間、建築與街道運動的交錯（Lefebvre & Régulier，1986）。

在更具解構性的意義上，米歇爾·傅柯（Michel Foucault）在1970年代的《規訓與懲罰》（Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison）中已指出，時間如何在現代社會（如監獄、軍隊、學校）中被規範、刻印與結構化。傅柯的門生吉爾·德勒茲（Gilles Deleuze）在《控制社會的後記》（Postscript on the Societies of Control）一文中進一步發展這一概念，認為在後規訓社會（即日益社會技術化的現代城市中），時間作為控制因素已經變得可調節、可操縱，使個體從啟蒙哲學中的「完整主體」，變為可操控的「分割個體」（dividual）（Deleuze，1992）。

從宗教研究的角度來看，「共時性」也可借鑒查爾斯·泰勒（Charles Taylor，2007）的觀點，即世俗性本身就是一種時間形態。然而，現代化並非均質或同質的，甚至並非必然非宗教化。因此，正如埃森斯塔特（Shmuel N. Eisenstadt，2003）所言，「多重現代性」可以同時存在，並在全球城市化空間與多元城市中上演，有時和諧共存，有時則發生衝突。

換言之，「共時性」作為「共空間性」的補充概念，將時間維度納入對重疊空間的分析之中。畢竟，正如愛因斯坦所教導的，時間與空間可以被擴展、壓縮、扭曲與變形，受物質、建築、城市、身體、污染以及生命運動的影響。(Source: Erfurt-ness by Sara Keller · Published August 19, 2019 · Updated April 10, 2024)

Comment by Place Link on Saturday

愛墾APP:Raumgeist～～德文Raumgeist由Raum（空間）和 Geist（精神、靈魂、思潮）組成，類似於Zeitgeist（時代精神），但強調的是空間維度的精神性或氛圍感。

可能的中文翻譯：

1. 空間精神（最直接的翻譯，強調空間所承載的文化與意識）
2. 場域之魂（結合「場域」概念，突出空間的氛圍感）
3. 空間意象（適用於偏向象征性與文化表達的語境）
4. 地域精神（強調地方性與文化歸屬）
5. 環境心靈（適用於生態哲學或環境感知的角度）
6. 場所之神（類似「土地神」或「場所精神」，富有詩意）

如果討論涉及地方文化意識、情動地理學或文化詩學，「場域之魂」或「空間精神」可能最合適。

如果強調哲學性與環境心理，「環境心靈」可能更具洞察力。

Comment by Place Link on September 10, 2024 at 6:15pm

爱垦網评注：感性、诗性与认知美学的人文科学角度

跨学科做文创研究，感性、诗性与认知美学三者可结合起来。通过探讨它们在文化创意中的互动关系，形成有人文科学意义的理论框架。这种研究不仅能揭示文化创意过程中的情感、象征与认知机制，还能探索文化产品在个人与社会层面的影响力。

感性：情感体验的核心

感性（Affectivity）在文创中扮演着重要角色，尤其是当文化产品或创意活动通过激发受众的情感体验达到与其产生共鸣时。感性关注的是个体如何通过情感、直觉来与文化内容建立联系。通过感性，文化创意产品得以传递情感价值，从而激发观众的情感参与与共鸣。

在人文科学研究中，感性可以通过现象学、情感转向（Affective Turn）等理论框架进行分析。例如，当文创产品（如一件艺术品或文旅体验）通过调动人们的感官、记忆、情感时，它的文化意义便不仅限于其物质形态，而是通过感性体验引发对人类存在、社会情感的深层反思。

诗性：象征与想象的力量

诗性（Poetics）在文化创意中关注象征、隐喻与想象力。维柯所提出的“诗性智慧”认为，人类最早的思想表达是通过诗意象征与想象力完成的，这赋予了文化创意深厚的历史和人类学背景。

在文创研究中，诗性表现为对符号、象征系统的创造性运用。文创产品往往通过诗性表达，重新塑造人们对现实的感知，开辟新的可能性。例如，一个设计项目、一部电影或一场文化展览，可能通过诗性形式将日常生活转化为充满象征意义的文化表达。

从人文科学的角度，诗性不仅限于文学和艺术，还可以是文化传播、符号学或叙事学的一部分。这使得文化创意不仅仅是市场产品，而是具有审美和哲学价值的象征行为。（下续）

Comment by Place Link on September 10, 2024 at 6:14pm

认知美学：理解与创造的机制

（续上）认知美学（Cognitive Aesthetics）通过研究人类的认知过程，揭示我们如何感知、理解和创造艺术与文化。这一领域借助认知科学，探索人类如何通过大脑的机制来处理文化符号、情感体验与创意内容。

在文创研究中，认知美学帮助理解文化产品如何通过设计、叙事或表现形式引发观众的感知与理解。例如，文化创意产品如何通过颜色、形式、符号等刺激大脑的认知反应，从而引发情感共鸣或文化认同。认知美学可以将复杂的情感体验转化为可理解的认知过程，帮助研究者分析文化产品的受众反应、市场接受度，以及文化符号在记忆和情感层面的深远影响。

感性、诗性与认知美学的关系

在文创研究中，感性、诗性与认知美学三者之间的互动关系，具有深刻的人文科学意义：

感性通过激发情感，使文化产品能够产生直观的情感共鸣；

诗性则通过象征、隐喻的方式，赋予这些情感深层的文化和哲学意义；

认知美学帮助我们理解这些体验是如何通过大脑和心智机制来加工与创造的。

这种关系可以在人文科学研究中得到深度的诠释。例如，研究一部电影或一个文创项目，可以同时分析它如何通过诗性符号与观众的情感产生共鸣，如何通过视觉、听觉等感性元素引发观众的体验，又如何通过认知美学的理论去解释观众对这些符号和情感的理解与反应。这种跨学科的探讨不仅揭示了文化创意的情感和审美价值，还能探索其在更广泛的社会和哲学层面的意义。

文创研究中的人文科学意义

通过整合感性、诗性与认知美学，文创研究可以在人文科学中产生以下几方面的重要意义：

情感共鸣与文化认同：研究如何通过感性体验和诗性象征，促进个人与集体对文化的认同，揭示文化产品的社会凝聚力。

符号与象征的创造力：诗性分析提供了理解文化产品如何通过象征和隐喻重新定义现实与世界的工具，揭示了文化创新的力量。

认知与情感的整合：认知美学使我们能够从科学的角度分析情感、想象与认知的相互作用，形成对文化产品影响力的全面理解。

这种结合不仅让文创研究具备了理论上的深度，还能为实际的文化创意实践提供指导，推动文化产业在情感与认知层面实现更加丰富的表达与创新。

总的来说，感性、诗性与认知美学在文创研究中的关系，揭示了文化产品在情感、象征与认知层面的复杂互动，这使得文创研究不仅具有实践指导意义，也为人文科学提供了多层次的理论反思。（爱垦網内部评析）

访陈明发博士谈感性文創与体验文创的区别

札哈哈蒂：房子能浮起來嗎？

追隨感官 1.6 詩性研究

地方感性

慢活

Comment by Place Link on July 29, 2024 at 11:43pm

Towards Topopoetics: Space, Place and the Poem by Tim Cresswell

Abstract: This essay focuses on the theme of poetry and place – a project I have called Topopoetics. It introduces the idea of topopoetics drawing on the work of Aristotle, Heidegger and more recent philosophies of place, dwelling and poetics.

The point is not to cover the familiar ground of ‘sense-of-place’ in poetry but rather to explore how the poem is a kind of place and the way in which poems create space and place through their very presence on the page, through the interactions of full space and blank space, stasis and flux, and inside and outside.

What can poetry tell us about space and place? Conversely, what can thinking about space and place tell us about poetry? These are the questions that motivate this essay. My aim is to both answer them and to reveal how spatial and platial thinking can inform forms of interpretation beyond the interpretation of space and place in the geographical world.

I develop a topopoetics – a project that sees poems as places and spaces. The distinction between space and place that is most often made is one in which space is seen as limitless, empty, divisible and subject to mathematical forms of understanding while place is seen as bounded, full, unique and subject to forms of interpretive understanding.

Place has been most frequently described as a meaning ful segment of space – as mere ‘location’ in space overlaid with things such as meaning, subjectivity, emotion and affect (Tuan 1977; Buttimer and Seamon 1980; Relph 1976; Cresswell 2014).

The definitions of space have become more sophisti cated thanks to interventions from critical theory and philosophy which have taken space out of the realm of the abstract and absolute in an attempt to reveal the work ings of space in the production of society (Soja 1989; Lefebvre 1991; Massey 2005).

At the same time work on place has added layers of power on the one hand (Cresswell 1996; Massey 1997) and a deeper philosophical role in human existence on the other (Casey 1998; Malpas 1999). There is not space here to rehearse all of the twists and turns in these debates. One aspect that is worth lingering on is the ques tion of which comes first, space or place? (Related)

Comment by Place Link on July 27, 2024 at 10:08am

It has become commonplace to see place as arising from space. In this sense space comes ‘first’. If space is an undifferentiated field – an abstract categorical axis of existence in the Kantian sense, then place has to occur in space. Places here are spatial moments, or points in space on which experience and meaning are layered.

Place comes after space. Space is a fundamental fact of the reality of the universe while place is what humans make out of it. The philosopher Jeff Malpas sees this as a relegation of place to the increasing importance of space in thought following the Renaissance: “The ‘rise’ of space is thus accompanied, one might say, by the ‘decline’ of place.

Indeed, in much contemporary thought, place often appears either as subjective overlay on the reality of materialized spatiality (place is space plus human value of ‘meaning’ …) or else as merely an arbitrary designated posi tion in a spatial field” (Malpas n.d.).

This way of thinking is turned on its head by philosophers of the phenomeno logical tradition following Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty who see spaces being formed out of the reality of place.

Place, here, becomes fundamental and primary while space is what follows once places come into existence as a kind of relation between places. In The Phenomenology of Perception Maurice Merleau-Ponty locates consciousness and intentionality not in the head but in the body.

How does the body relate to space? The most obvious way of articulating this is to think of the body as located (like place) in space where space is an external and continuous field in which the body exists and which the body has to navigate.

This is a body in Cartesian space that exists as an object. Merleau-Ponty rejects this view and argues instead for a ‘body-subject’ that exists in lived space – space which unfolds through the existence of the body rather than providing a precondition for the body. The human body produces certain kinds of orientation such as inside and outside, up and down, front and back and left and right that continually produce space rather than simply inhabit it.

As Merleau-Ponty put it: We must therefore avoid saying that our body is in space, or in time. It inhabits space and time … In so far as I have a body through which I act in the world, space and time are not, for me, a collection of adjacent points nor are they a limitless number of relations synthesized by my consciousness, and into which it draws my body.

I am not in space and time, nor do I conceive space and time; I belong to them, my body combines with them and includes them (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 161). Merleau-Ponty, then, insists that the bodily space is primary to external Cartesian space. Bodies are not simply in an already existing space – rather space is produced by the body.

A similar logic is at work in Heidegger’s account of the work done by building a bridge over a river. The bridge swings over the stream “with ease and power.” It does not just connect banks that are already there. The banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream. The bridge designedly causes them to lie across from each other. One side is set off against the other by the bridge. Nor do the banks stretch along the stream as indifferent border strips of the dry land.

Comment by Place Link on July 23, 2024 at 7:43am

With the banks, the bridge brings to the stream the one and the other expanse of the landscape lying behind them. It brings stream and bank and land into each other’s neighborhood. The bridge gathers the earth as landscape around the stream (Heidegger 1971, 150).

Heidegger’s bridge brings a place and a surrounding landscape into being. In so doing, it also produces space. The bridge as a place does not just connect pre- existing spaces or operate within a pre-existing space – it brings space into being.

In this sense, place comes before space. This is a reversal of the more frequent suggestion that places exist in space and that space comes before place. Heidegger is clearly making a different argument from Merleau-Ponty.

Nevertheless, what unites the two passages is an insistence on the way spaces are brought into being in relation to platial bodies and structures as active agents. Place comes first. One final preliminary point about place before moving on to a discussion of topopoetics. One of the defining qualities of place, across disciplines, has been the way in which places bring things together.

They are seen as syncretic mixtures of elements of multiple domains. Different scholars use different terms to describe this fact. Philosophers following Heidegger write of places as sites of gathering (Casey 1996). The geographer Robert Sack uses the metaphor of a loom to describe places as products of the process of weaving (Sack 2003).

Writers informed by the philoso phy of Gilles Deleuze and Manual Delanda refer to this process as assemblage (DeLanda 2006; Dovey 2010). Things mingle in places and places are constantly being made through gathering/weaving/ assembling and constantly being pulled apart. Among the things that are gathered in place are objects (materialities), mean ings (narratives, stories, memories etc.) and practices.

Philosopher Edward Casey puts this as well as anyone. Minimally, places gather things in their midst– where ‘things’ connote various animate and inanimate entities. Places also gather experiences and histories, even languages and thoughts. Think only of what it means to go back to a place you know, finding it full of memories and expectations, old things and new things, the familiar and the strange, and much more besides. What else is capable of this massively diversified holding action? (Casey 1996, 24)

1 Towards topopoetics

In the remainder of this essay I mobilize some of what has preceded in relation to thinking about poetry. I argue for poems as places (as well as about places) that can be interpreted spatially. The term topopoetics originates from the term topos as developed by Malpas and Casey in their readings of Heidegger and others (Casey 1998; Malpas 2012b).

Topo comes from topos (τόπος), the Greek for ‘place’. This is combined with poetics, which comes from poiesis (ποίησις), the Ancient Greek term for ‘making’. Topopoetics is thus ‘place-making’. The particular lineage I am invoking for topos derives from the philosophy of Aristotle. Importantly, for our purposes, topos appears in both accounts of how the world comes into being and as a figure in rhetoric. In rhetoric a topos is a “particular argumentative form or pattern” from which particular arguments can be derived.1

It is very much like a form in poetry – a sonnet or a villanelle. It has a particular shape. This rhetorical view of topos is linked to the world through the art of memorizing long lists by locating things on a list in particular places. “For just as in the art of remembering, the mere mention of the places instantly makes us recall the things, so these will make us more apt at deductions through looking to these defined premises in order of enumeration.” 2

Comment by Place Link on July 20, 2024 at 6:52am

In Aristotle’s rhetoric it is important to choose the right kind of topos for the argument at hand, just as it is important to select the right form for a particular poet. It draws our attention to the importance of (among other things) the shape on the page. The richer meaning of topos emerged more fully formed in the writing of Martin Heidegger and has recently been elaborated by the philosopher, Jeff Malpas (Heidegger 1971; Malpas 1999, 2012a).

Here topos is mobilized through the idea of the topological to indicate the primary nature of place for being. To put it bluntly, to be is to be in place – to be here/there. The connection between poetry and the idea of place as the site of being is right there at the outset as Heidegger’s insistence on being as being-in-place originated from an encounter with the poetry of Hölderlin (Malpas 2006; Elden 1999).

Heidegger’s topological thought includes two key concepts – Dasein and dwelling. Dasein means (approximately) ‘being there’. It combines Heidegger’s career- long enquiry into the nature of being with a recognition that being is always placed – that existence is thoroughly intertwined with place.

The way that we make a home in the world is referred to as dwelling. The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on the earth, is Buan, dwelling.

To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell (Heidegger 1971, 145). How, exactly, people enact this dwelling (or fail to enact it) becomes a central object for philosophy in Heidegger’s later texts.3 In an important series of late essays Heidegger invokes poetry as a form of dwell ing. He goes so far as to suggest that it is an ideal form of building and dwelling. Poetic creation, which lets us dwell, is a kind of building.

Thus we confront a double demand: for one thing, we are to think of what is called man’s existence by way of the nature of dwelling; for another, we are to think of the nature of poetry as a letting-dwell, as a – perhaps even the – distinctive kind of building. If we search out the nature of poetry according to this viewpoint, then we arrive at the nature of dwelling (Heidegger 1971, 213).

This observation (linking poetry to its root meaning of ‘making’) gets right to the heart of the constitution of topopoetics. Poetry, as Heidegger observes, is a kind of building and thus a particularly important kind of dwelling. This building-as- dwelling, however, is more than the practical stuff of constructing in the correct way – it is, in Heidegger’s view, about the essential character of being-in-the world – being in, and with, place. 

1 For a discussion of topos, see Rapp 2010: 7.1.

2 Aristotle Topics 163b28.32.

3 Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party, a membership he later denounced. There is no doubt that these ideas of dwelling were easily incorporated into a Nazi ideology of proper authentic (Aryan) dwelling counterposed to an inauthentic (Jewish, gay, Romany) form of (non) dwelling. Following Malpas I do not believe that this necessarily means that his ideas are irrecoverably infected.

An engagement with the philosophical basis of topos adds to our original definition of place (above) as a gathering of things, practices and meanings in a particular location. While place is all of these things this definition fails to underline the basic significance of being placed to being-in-the-world. A topopoetic account is one which recognizes the specificity of the nearness of things in place and at the same time focuses our attention on the way in which the poem is itself a form of building and dwelling.

Comment by Place Link on July 18, 2024 at 6:05am

Poems of place are not simply poems about places, rather they are a species of place with a special relationship to what it is to be in (external) place. Included in this is a recognition that poems (as places) have a material existence as a gathering of words (literally ink) on the page which takes a particular spatial form.

Topopoetics means closing the gap between the material form of the poem (topos in the sense of rhetorics) and the earthly world of place (topos as place). It means attending to the presence of place within the poem. To do this the rest of the essay considers the role of blank space, the tension between shape/form and movement and the relationship between the inside and outside of the poem. 2

Blank Space/Full Space Before, there was nothing, or almost nothing; afterwards, there isn’t much, a few signs, but which are enough for there to be a top and a bottom, a beginning and an end, a right and a left, a recto and a verso (Perec 1997, 10). My interest here is in the combined impact of two meanings of topos – as correct form and as place – on understanding poetic approaches to and renditions of place. The act of building and dwelling that is a poem starts with a blank white space. By writing poems we gather that space and give it form.

True – it already has edges and texture (it is, in Perec’s terms “almost nothing”) but words (as place) bring space into existence. The space becomes margins and gaps between words – even holes within letters. This relationship between poem and place and the space that takes shape around it is one of the defining elements of poetry. Glyn Maxwell, in On Poetry, ruminates on blank space and silence in poetry. Regard the space, the ice plain, the dizzying light. That past, that future.

Already it isn’t nothing. At the very least it’s your enemy, and that’s an awful lot. Poets work with two materials, one’s black and one’s white. Call them sound and silence, life and death, hot and cold, love and loss…. … Call it this and that, whatever it is this time, just don’t make the mistake of thinking the white sheet is nothing. It’s nothing for your novelist, your journalist, your blogger. For those folk it’s a tabular rasa, a giving surface. For the poet it is half of everything. If you don’t know how to use it you are writing prose. If you write poems that you might call free and I might call unpatterned then skillful, intelligent use of the whiteness is all that you’ve got (Maxwell 2012, 11). Poems are patterns made from space and which make space. Even before a word is read you can see a poem’s shape – the black against the white in Maxwell’s terms.

This is one of the most pleasing things about poetry and it serves no function at all in a novel or most other forms of writing. Writing a poem is a little form of place creation that configures blankness. This resonates with Wallace Stevens’ ‘Anecdote of the Jar’: I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion every where. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Here the roundness of the jar (roundness is repeated throughout the poem in ‘round’, ‘around’ and ‘surround’) orders the “slovenly wilderness” around it – it orders and regulates a kind of blankness (the ‘almost-nothing’ of wilderness) in a contrived and designed way.

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