A spirited defense of the Grenier "JOE / JOE" poem this morning over at Silliman's Blog. John E. had asked "Did Silliman honestly praise a two word poem yesterday, and both of those words were Joe?"

I've been working on this one-word poem for some time:

CIRCUM

AMBU

LA

TORI

NESS
LESS

For the full effect, you must print each line on a separate page (except for the last two lines). It is thus a six-line, five page poem, but one consisting of only one *word*. If I had written this in 1955 I would be a genius. Writing it in 2003 makes me frankly derivative.