I sit,

staring
at my laptop
screen.

An extra-large bag
of popcorn
rests at my side,

salty,
savory,
sweet.

One hundred forty
calories

per serving.

A super-sized soda
with squirts
of peach
and strawberry

stands by.

Yet,
inspiration
stalls.

Silent.

So I sit,

and snack.

Snacking on the Mimetic Form

This poem made me think about mimetic form.

Sometimes a poem can imitate what it describes. Not just through imagery, but through its shape on the page.

As I worked on this one, lines kept getting shorter. Popcorn became one bite at a time. Soda was poured in little sips. Even the calorie count slowed everything down, turning a detail into a pause.

The poem also leaves empty space on the right side of the page. That wasn’t an accident. It reminds me of staring at a mostly blank laptop screen while waiting for something to happen. Your eye keeps dropping down the page, almost one bite at a time.

Poets have been playing with this idea for a long time. E.E. Cummings famously broke apart conventional punctuation, spacing, and lineation to make the appearance of the poem part of its meaning. A.R. Ammons took it further by typing an entire book onto a narrow roll of adding-machine tape, letting the physical canvas dictate the shape of the poem.

The words tell one story; the shape tells another.

When the two work together, a poem starts doing more than simply describing an experience. It lets you live in it.