INTRODUCTION
These abstract poems, which I prefer to
call 'superpoems', are not intended to be read but
simply ... contemplated. They are
not concerned with the expression of a literary sentiment, ideal, or opinion,
but with the creation of a poetic impression. Thus they are purely abstract and intimate,
no matter how simply or humbly, of a divine prospect, a truly free-electron
order. For ordered they assuredly are,
and this is what elevates them above the merely anarchic status of an
expressionistic abstraction.
If
words are equivalent to electrons in terms of a literary atomicity, then the
absence of grammatical arrangements testifies to a freedom from neutron
constraint and/or domination, since grammar must necessarily reflect a neutron
bias to the extent that it is concerned with expression, and never more so than
with the expression of thoughts, in contrast with the rather more proton-based
expression, through words, of emotions.
It
is not enough, however, that words should be set free from grammar, and hence
an atomic compromise with intellectual and even emotional expression; for this
is merely anarchic and testifies to an anti-intellectual degeneration. On the contrary, they should be regrouped
into abstract patterns, reflecting a New Order in poetry, and thereby be
elevated above anti-intellectualism to a pro-transcendental status commensurate
with a Social Transcendentalist bias.
Then they will reflect a truly free-electron binding in a higher order –
one intimating, through abstract impression, of the Holy Spirit. Freedom is inseparable from chaos or, as its
apologists prefer to put it, choice, and better than the freedom from intellect
and/or emotion in everywhichway chaos ... is the binding
to spirit in logical patterns. Poetry is
not true until it becomes spiritual. It
is not spiritual until it is truly pure.
John O'Loughlin, London 1985 (Revised
2011)
