When I first encounter a poem as object-like as this one, the impulse is to look before I read. The first thing I notice about Niedecker’s poem is the indentation of the fourth line. From there, my eye is drawn to the word “hole” in the line above, and this verbal-visual articulation leads me to understand that the indentation performs a state of perforation; its left margin isn’t sealed; the poem orients itself around a gap.
Popcorn-can cover screwed to the wall over a hole so the cold can’t mouse in — Lorine Niedecker
First reading of Lorine Niedecker's 'Popcorn-can cover' (3)
Mandy Bloomfield
When I first encounter a poem as object-like as this one, the impulse is to look before I read. The first thing I notice about Niedecker’s poem is the indentation of the fourth line. From there, my eye is drawn to the word “hole” in the line above, and this verbal-visual articulation leads me to understand that the indentation performs a state of perforation; its left margin isn’t sealed; the poem orients itself around a gap.
Popcorn-can cover
screwed to the wall
over a hole
so the cold
can’t mouse in
— Lorine Niedecker