Space

 Question 9: How much [space] should poetry use? Plenty. Give yourself room. Cramped lined notebooks, forget it. Lavish A4 spaces receive the full force-field. Some Italians write every direction 1metrex1metre. Fold-up in their pocket. American deadbeats set a roll in their typewriter. They needed a computer. You may compose on a fresh document to eternity. Dear Eternity, thankyou for your time. Single-spaced Times New Roman 12 pt. All that comes later. Really you may write over whatever’s available. The serviette, your forearm, seven-storey walls. A recycled ream does no harm. Crossings-out, arrows, side lists of possibilities enhance the overall effect.

Space (December)

Blackboards of equations, whiteboards of diagrams do nothing to explain Einstein’s idea that space is not ‘nothing’; how space is a physical entity that interacts with matter. His words are a two-line poem: “Matter tells space how to curve, space tells matter how to move.” This words explanation is more domestic than it first sounds. Reading them during December holidays, in the Brian Wilson quiet in my room, my home is a model universe. Kitchen cupboards tower like Pillars of Creation, Christmas lights manufacture starry backdrops to galaxies of furniture. Air is space, curving everywhere, telling matter how to move.