Sign Inventory, Week 4

Poem: “Revision” by Carl Phillips

1. The recursive image of erasure appears several times in the poem, yet ends with the idea of recognition.
2. The poem begins with a question of identity and ends with the speaker calling the subject to speak first in which he will answer.
3. The recursive dynamic between naming and namelessness appears several times throughout the poem.
4. The only time a “you” appears is at the end of the poem.
5. The poem makes several lengthy asides dealing with pastoral images of leaves and the wind.
6. The recursivity of concrete, pastoral images, such a “leaves,” “wind,” and “river” are often paired with more abstract concepts, such as the “mind,” “trust,” “belief,” etc.
7. The poem seems to bookend with the “my” in the beginning of the poem and the “you” at the end of the poem in which the middle section of the poem seems to connect the two figures with the speaker’s directive discourse with the “people.”
8. The poem seems to utilize the indecisive usage of language through, for example, the question in the beginning where the speaker uses “or,” “neither,” and “possibly” among others.
9. The effect of time in this poem seems to indicate the trope longevity within the language as the speaker often refers to “long hours,” “time in its direction,” “the days,” “forever after,” “afternoon,” and “ending.”
10. The language of seems to shift from the static existence of the speaker to the active existence of the pastoral.