ABSTRACT
Modern poetry begins with the French Symbolists: and the French Symbolists discovered how to do something new with language. That is, they discovered how to drop a word (or cluster of words) like a pebble into a pond, letting ripples of meaning spread out all around. As Mallarmé explains:
I say: a flower! and, out of the forgetfulness where my voice banishes any contour, inasmuch as it is something other than known calyxes, musically arises, an idea itself and fragrant, the one absent from all bouquets.1
