Ensuring coherence: two solutions to organising poetic language

Abstract

The organisation of poetic language as discourse type and as text is worth considering in its own right. What do poets bring to expression through their organisation of language, and how do they do it, if they employ language skilfully in order to support the main discursive threads of their work? This contribution demonstrates that poets may choose to organise language around discursive threads in order to ensure the integrity or wholeness of their texts. We might also label this wholeness the aesthetic coherence of the poetry that is produced. The article discusses two examples of how poets ensure coherence by organising their language in highly specific and inventive ways.