Ken Stange

Sense And Appearance (2015-02-26)

Aside from sound and sense, there is a third component that has increased in importance since the invention and refinement of printing: the appearance of the poem on the page.  When poetry was primarily oral and literacy unusual this wasn’t a consideration. Now, however, and especially in the last hundred years, many poets have used a poem’s appearance to enhance its meaning—just as sound does. Here is an example by e.e. cummings who consistently used a poem’s appearance to enrich its meaning.