NINE, by Theodore Enslin; National Poetry Foundation, Orono, Maine, 2004, 296 pages, paperback, $22.95.

Contrary to some popular academic beliefs of the last 50 years, the substance of a poem is not in its “message,” and Theodore Enslin’s new collection is evidence.

The meaning of the poems in “Nine” is intended to be heard, not seen. Every line is composed as an element in a melody, not as an idea, so to the everyday eye looking for conventional words of wisdom, descriptions of flowers, or moral instruction on politics, race, class or gender, the poems in “Nine” will seem to be almost nonsense:

A song of one is song to another sung

to one who listens singing one song

it is a singing to another it sings itself

the one and to and from the other one

of singing is a song to sing to listen

to the singing sound of a song

The words themselves, lacking conventional English syntax, convey little or no visible “message.” Enslin’s lines are made not of dictionary meanings but of rhythms and repetitions of sounds. They intend to convey, not ideas, but the feelings evoked by music.

This is not new to poetry. A simple fact of literary history is that the essential power of poetry – from ancient times until recently – has been experienced primarily in its rhythms and sounds rather than its ideas. Indeed, Edgar Allan Poe himself, one of the original architects of modern theories of literature, defined poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty.”

Enslin’s poems are pure contemporary examples of poetry as primarily a form of music. His lines are deftly composed, and they deliberately cast off conventional grammar and meters to draw our attention to the music instead of the words’ dictionary meanings. His sentences stop making sense – as David Byrne pleaded sometime back – so that we can just hear music without worrying about hidden messages.

This kind of poetry gives some professors fits that out-herod Herod. For the past 50 years they have put their faith in the notion that analyzing the social, political and linguistic meanings of a poem will reveal certain rational ideas, as though a poem was a coded philosophical tract or a series of linguistic accidents. This approach creates a sort of hell for students because most good poetry, especially 20th century poetry, looks like mumbo jumbo that only high-priestlike intellectual contortionists can comprehend.

But Theodore Enslin’s poems are good news for everyone who hopes to understand poetry: All you have to do is listen. The meaning will come to you in the same way it comes through a piano concerto or a blues guitar solo. You may not be able to say what it is, but you can feel it. Enslin understands this perennial truth exceptionally clearly, and the music of the poems in “Nine” – their sounds and rhythms – is beautiful.

These poems share generally similar rhythm patterns. Like in the music of Philip Glass, subtle variations of rhythm and sound schemes wave through Enslin’s lines, but over the nine sections of the book, the overall effect is roughly the same from one poem to another. The rhythms are so generally similar, page after page, that you begin to feel you’re reading the same poem over and over, and so the nine long sections of the book, each comprising up to dozens of separate poems, will be most enjoyably read if approached as nine separate volumes.

But these volumes should be read, and taken to heart. This is accomplished verse. Enslin of Milbridge is one of Maine’s important links to the world of poetry as practiced by poets, where “without the words the song continues singing” – instead of being dissected, dried and left to wither on a classroom floor. Whoever has ears can hear these poems.

Dana Wilde can be reached at dana.wilde@umit.maine.edu.