Absolute Composition: The Mechanics of Structural Poetry
What happens when structure itself carries meaning?
Absolute Composition: The Mechanics of Structural Poetry presents a compositional framework grounded in observable relation, compression, threshold behavior, structural correspondence, and transformation.
Rather than beginning with theme, symbolism, or narrative, Absolute Composition begins with a system and asks how it behaves. Pressure accumulates. Conditions change. Thresholds are crossed. Structures fracture, recur, stabilize, or transform. Meaning emerges through the arrangement of these relations rather than through imposed explanation.
The book introduces the foundational mechanics of Absolute Composition, including the paradox triad; the perceptual registers of matter, mind, and being; three orbitals of compression; and a practical method for moving from observation through composition and revision.
It then extends these principles into a broader structural framework, examining threshold behavior, historical and systemic modeling, dramatic performance and dialogue systems, and cross-form structural integrity. Throughout, the emphasis remains on structural clarity: how a composition behaves, how transformation emerges through relation, and how form can generate meaning without requiring symbolic substitution.
Written for poets, writers, educators, and readers interested in the mechanics of composition, Absolute Composition offers both a theory of structural writing and a practical method for constructing work in which pressure, relation, threshold, and transformation become the organizing forces.
This second edition presents the framework in a newly condensed and reorganized form, bringing its foundational principles and later developments together in a focused introduction to the mechanics of Absolute Composition.
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