Christopher Meredith
Sir/Madam
The poem (hereinafter called The Poem)
will consist of approximately 35-45 lines.
In the opening two or three lines
a startling image will be broached.
All nouns at this stage will be concrete
and multisyllabic latinate words
will be avoided.
The immediacy this generates
may well pull the reader (hereinafter
The Reader) through The Poem
with a sense of its integrity,
though it may not necessarily be comprehensible.
This will be facilitated by a firm but
unobtrusive control of rhythm and line
breaks.
More images will follow.
They will establish an atmosphere, a milieu
both oblique and bleak,
perhaps outdoors: a Landscape, some Weather.
Some small detail will suggest the larger world
(e.g., a thumbnail scraping at dried paint
standing for the crisis of lost meaning etc.).
Point of view will be crucial to The Poem.
Late on and subtly it will emerge
That there is an I
about whom (or who) The Reader must be
cautious. (I may not be the author, etc.)
Near the end there will be a shift –
perhaps there is a sudden change of tense.
Earlier images recur, perhaps a little altered,
(e.g. the sky is dark, a thumbnail picks at dried blood)
reflecting and refracting all that has been said.
Your fund provides an excellent opportunity
to embark on The Poem. I have approached
my employers, who are sympathetic, for release.
I believe you favour most those projects
devoted to capital investment.
This is one such. If successful, I plan
to build a house for all eternity.
(My CV is enclosed.)
