Page 270
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Turning Your Head treats the ghost in the corner as a trick of speed and perception, something almost transcendent but probably only fast enough to fool you.
The poem is fascinated by the threshold where repetition creates apparition. "Possibly a transcendence / Not necessarily" is the key correction, refusing easy supernatural certainty. The final instruction is almost comic in its method: keep turning your head, and misperception itself will manufacture the ghost.
'Turning Your Head' treats 'The ghost in the corner' as a trick of speed and perception, 'Faster than a cat could touch it'. The key hedge refuses easy mysticism -- 'Possibly a transcendence / Not necessarily / two places at the same time' -- crediting it to being 'Just fast enough / so you think so'. The closing instruction is almost comic method: 'Keep on turning your head / Do it alot / You'll get to see a ghost' -- misperception itself manufactures the apparition.