Abstracts

The essayistic introduction to this little collection of abstract poems attempts to point up a distinction between poetry and antipoetry, and then to contrast both of these with what has been termed superpoems – the abstract poetry of a transcendental age or civilization which strives to dissolve grammatical appearances into a non-descriptive essence. Whether or not John O'Loughlin was successful in this or even correct in his overall theorizing at this time (1983), Abstracts is a collection of poems which, whilst mostly readerly (or capable of being read), is devoid of conventional significance, and therefore has to be read or, rather, understood in relation to the underlying significance, where apparent, of the form, which lifts each poem above the usual phenomenal realm of descriptive poetry towards a transcendent realm of pure abstraction.