PARTISAN REVIEW
99
deed the advent of empty space as a variable which might be utilized
in
the shaping of poems, clearly coincident with the opening of as–
tronomical space and geological time within the literary mind, sud–
denly throws all previous poetry into relief as belonging to closed
universes. So that when you see a poem in which space
occurs,
you
are seeing a new cosmos.
Poets try to remind us that poems are things made of words
which offer us a structure, a pattern, a certain use of materials.
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"Meaning" (i.e., semantic meaning ) in a poem, remarks T. S. Eliot,
is
something one throws the reader as a burglar throws steaks to dogs,
to keep them occupied while he goes about his actual business. Musi–
cal meaning would be something else again. Similarly, "Beauty
is
momentary in the mind. . . . But in the flesh it
is
immortal," mur–
murs Stevens. "No belly and no bowels / Only consonants and vow–
els," chuckles Ransom at the close of his "Literary Cocktail Party,"
getting back to basics. All poems are objects with physical properties
that make an impact. All poems are concrete poems. AB a rule, how-
