The minimalist design for this poem concentrates attention on the visual while it evokes all the senses with its language choices. There is only one input cue at the opening of the poem a white dot in the faint gray background that triggers the poem’s slowly scheduled display of language. The pace at which lines fade in and out creates a layered meditative experience and the words instruct readers to imagine a space, do things with their bodies, and become aware of how it leads to sensory experience. Pay attention to the rhythm established by the fading language and to the rhetorical and semantic pattern Knoebel creates with the poem so you can really appreciate how he breaks both patterns with a single powerfully sensuous word.
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