Feb 2012
Between the Author
And the Reader,
The Text lies waiting.
The Author,
Only partially aware
Of All Intents and Purposes
In spite of careful diction,
Forms a multi-messaged bolt
To drive full meaning
Home.
The Text,
Scripted in language,
Printed on paper,
Inked in pixels,
Floated in air,
Carries meaning
in a leaking bucket
Denoting and Connoting
Implications only.
The Reader,
Seeking something
Not even realized,
Comes partially engaged,
Intent to dabble
Or to glean
Or find some thought
On which to meditate.
Somehow in this tenuous state
Between mortal thinkers,
Ideas cross synaptic bridges -
Through the air and light,
Tempered by time,
Culture-cured,
Enriched by vocabulary,
Electrically ignited...
Combustion!
And the Reader,
The Text lies waiting.
The Author,
Only partially aware
Of All Intents and Purposes
In spite of careful diction,
Forms a multi-messaged bolt
To drive full meaning
Home.
The Text,
Scripted in language,
Printed on paper,
Inked in pixels,
Floated in air,
Carries meaning
in a leaking bucket
Denoting and Connoting
Implications only.
The Reader,
Seeking something
Not even realized,
Comes partially engaged,
Intent to dabble
Or to glean
Or find some thought
On which to meditate.
Somehow in this tenuous state
Between mortal thinkers,
Ideas cross synaptic bridges -
Through the air and light,
Tempered by time,
Culture-cured,
Enriched by vocabulary,
Electrically ignited...
Combustion!
An examination of Louise Rosenblatt's transactional literacy theory. The creation of a "poem" between the text and each individual reader happens in a momentary spark and explosion in which the reader's life and experience and emotions and who-knows-what-all is combined with the words of the text to create something new and transcendent...the POEM of meaning. Let me know if this poem helps to explain Rosenblatt's POEM.
