Reading a poet reading

Abstract

Abstract There is something inexplicable about our potential for ceaseless creativity, in both the making and the reading of meaning, not just in poetry, or some other form of verbal art, but in every aspect of our lives. In “A poet reading”, the poet Edwin Thumboo explores our capacity for ceaseless creativity in language with a poem whose meaning is bounded only by whatever readings the grammar will allow. Reading “A poet reading”, the linguist attempts a ‘raid on the inarticulate’, to gain insight into the reality-generating power and creative energy of grammar as system of meaning potential.