How to Find Rhythm on a Piece of Paper

For the past two centuries discussions of the meter and rhythm of a line of poetry have often been at cross-purposes because of different assumptions about whether the poem is a temporal object. References to the idiosyncrasies of a “performance” have confused the question by contrasting a specific event with a supposedly independent, enduring, timeless object. The conclusion of this line of thought rejects any reference to temporal features as part of the poem’s structure. By contrast, the ontology of the present essay is firmly temporal. It draws on ideas of “embodiment” in cognitive science to argue that the poem does not exist until it is performed and perceived. These actualizations of a poem may find cues in the conventional written representation of a poem, but the marks on paper are not the poem.