By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A meditation on literary structure through the extended metaphor of building, in which the climax of a poem is compared to the ridge of a lean-to that must be supported from both directions or collapse.
An ars poetica built out of carpentry. The poem reads narrative shape as a roofline: 'The length of the line to the climax' is 'like the look from the side / on the lean-to,' while the ending is 'the short line that / holds the support of the ridges' or the climax. The hinge is the warning that 'with the beginning' both directions 'must be built / from the ground / Of the climax-or the ridge / will fold' - the doubled 'will fold' enacting the collapse - and 'Be it from the mind or from the wind' makes craft and weather the same threat, unless 'your not afraid of falling / with it / Or being buried by it.'