{"id":18577,"date":"2016-12-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=307"},"modified":"2016-12-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T00:00:00","slug":"poetic-apocalypse-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/12\/poetic-apocalypse-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetic Apocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

C<\/span>hristian Wiman (My Bright Abyss<\/em><\/a>, 51-2) claims that some poets\u2014\u201csurprisingly few\u201d\u2014possess \u201ca very particular gift for making a thing at once shine forth in its \u2018thingness\u2019 and ramify beyond its own dimensions.\u201d He sites several lines from Norman MacCaig:<\/p>\n

\u201cStraws like tame lightnings lie about the grass \/ And hang zigzag on hedges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe black cow is two native carriers \/ Bringing its belly home, slung from a pole.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not, Wiman thinks, a matter of \u201cthe extraordinary discovered within the ordinary,\u201d which he dismisses as \u201ca cliche of poetic perception.\u201d Something more is at work:<\/p>\n

What happens is some mysterious resonance between thing and language, mind and matter, that reveals\u2014and it does feel like revelation\u2014a reality beyond the one we ordinarily see. Contemporary physicists talk about something called \u2018quantum weirdness,\u2019 which refers to the fact that an observed particle behaves very differently from one that is unobserved. An observed particle passed through a screen will always go through one hole. A particle that is unobserved but mechanically monitored will pass through multiple holes at the same time. What this suggests is that what we call reality is conditioned by the limitations of our senses, and there is some other reality much larger and more complex than we are able to achieve.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What comes through in MacCaig\u2019s lines is not a glimpse of \u201csome mystical world,\u201d but \u201cof multiple dimensions within a single perception. They are not discovering the extraordinary within the ordinary. They are, for the briefest of instants, perceiving something of reality as it truly is.\u201d<\/p>\n

One wonders, though, if the limitation of \u201cbriefest of instants\u201d is conditioned by the way we are taught to see. Would it be different for a poet who lived in constant expectancy of seeing \u201cmultiple dimensions within a single perception\u201d?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christian Wiman (My Bright Abyss, 51-2) claims that some poets\u2014\u201csurprisingly few\u201d\u2014possess \u201ca very particular gift for making a thing at once shine forth in its \u2018thingness\u2019 and ramify beyond its own dimensions.\u201d He sites several lines from Norman MacCaig: \u201cStraws like tame lightnings lie about the grass \/ And hang zigzag on hedges.\u201d \u201cThe black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1098],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\nPoetic Apocalypse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Christian Wiman (My Bright Abyss, 51-2) claims that some poets\u2014\u201csurprisingly few\u201d\u2014possess \u201ca very particular gift for making a thing at once shine forth\" \/>\n<meta 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