Firstnesses

Geof Huth, "sustense" (9 April 2017)

The problem with the pwoermd is also its redemption.

Given the tiny size of a pwoermd, two people (and maybe more than that) sometimes independently create the same pwoermd, and that independent co-creation attacks a western ideal of art as the unique product of a single artist. Sometimes the unrecreations of a previously produced pwoermd are identical to another poet's earlier one, and sometimes they are merely nearly so.

So far this year, I've seen two people each recreate pwoermds close to identical to pwoermds of mine. Maybe these people saw my previous pwoermds or maybe not. But it does not matter. I myself have recreated pwoermds I have produced in the past, because I cannot remember all of the thousands of pwoermds I have made.

The pwoermd is so small that the US Copyright Office will not allow people to copyright individual pwoermds, and that is good and right. The pwoermd is a glance inside language, one many can share without even knowing it.

Being the first person to create a pwoermd does not make one a better poet. It makes one only first, and first is not an important measure of success in poetry.

pw(o'er)md