Witness Magazine

Glossary

By
Poetry•Ghosts - Vol. XVII No. 1 (2014)

Map

A two–dimensional representation of a three–dimensional swath of land. A diagrammatic rendering. For use with a compass. For use with stars. With a map of the stars. A song I sing to know where I am. For use. A printed version of the line between the island and the sea. The island is an island in Greece. The line is taken down on the page. A copy. A copy of. The line on the page resembles the line between island and sea resembles the line of the horizon. The village in southern France resembles the village on the island in Greece. Corresponding parts. The correspondence transcribed. A record. A miniature. A version of the mountain. To associate or link. Two like things. Or a copy the size of the original. Mapped on to. A world the size of a world. Off the map. When taken, this donkey path is likely to lead to such and such a village. A village is a pin point. Which came first. A circular definition. An arrangement in a system to pointing. Follow the red line.

Kathryn Cowles
Kathryn Cowles' first book, Eleanor, Eleanor, not your real name (Bear Star 2008), won the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Diagram, The Offending Adam, Free Verse, Drunken Boat, Word for/ Word, Bombay Gin, and The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day. She is poetry co-editor of Seneca Review, including a 2014 special issue on hybrid, multimedia, and lit-art forms called Beyond Category. She teaches at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes Region of New York.