Abstract

A poem is not particular in the way a painting is particular. A copy of a poem is still the poem, while a copy of a painting is not the painting. But a poem is still particular, since it seems to be constituted by a specific set of words in a specific order such that to alter that order or any of those words is to make a new poem. Marianne Moore begins her poem “An Egyptian Pulled Glass Bottle in the Shape of a Fish” in the following way: She might have revised this and replaced “perpendicularity” with “verticality.” This says the same thing, but it is not the same poem. The particularity of a poem, relative to the words that make it up, constitutes a...