Because this is not my first blog (it's technically #5), I don't really feel compelled to start at the beginning. I am rather in the mood for starting in medias res. Some of you (most of you?) will have followed me here from other online communities, in any case, and will know a bit of the backstory. Or one or two of the backstories, at the least.
This blog is about the poetry. Mine. Yours. Others. Having said that, I suspect some of the other parts of the story will sneak in here from time to time since we don't exist exclusively in the compartments we build for ourselves. We tend to bleed and bolt.
Why Selvage? "In a woven fabric, the selvage (or selvedge) is the uncut edge of the fabric which is on the right- and left-hand edges as it comes out of the loom. As such it is 'finished' and will not fray because the weft threads double back on themselves. The term also refers to the unfinished but structurally sound edges of flat knitted textiles." (Wiki)
Poetry differentiates itself from prose most evidently at its edges. Line breaks finish off the poem's edges. Even when they're ragged, they do not fray, as the lines either hard stop or enjamb back to more lines--and sometimes they have to search for their next landing spot on the page. Yet this fringe is a made thing. It has a purpose and a craft. Despite the fact that poems often challenge our understanding of standard grammar, they are nonetheless built out of "structurally sound edges" that define this particular fabric and not another.
Thanks for joining me.
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