Message Clear

Poems we uncovered on our trip to Istanbul are still lerking in my mind... I've been thinking about an Edwin Morgan, which I have known, but not given much thought to ever, isMessage Clear.

"To a certain extent, the explication of a poem is a game in which the reader pits personal intelligence against that of the poet. The words, the images, the allusions and the structure of a poem all must have meant something to the

poet in the act of creation... thus interpretation must rest to a certain extent upon the reader being able to

recognise and respond to what the poet has done."

Morgan has created a series of lines based upon the Biblical reference to Jesus, "I am the resurrection and the life..." (John 11:25)

The poem is meant to be in a font like Courier, and the letters that form the lines grow upward form the full quotation at the bottom of the poem. The letters in a given line can be grouped to form words. Once these are formed, the poem can be read. Reading the words though, may not give the reader an understanding of what the poem is really saying...