Introduction

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)