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How should a book of poems be organized, and in what ways does it matter? How have poets shaped their books and what are the effects of those shapes? Because a collection of poems is sequential, not simultaneous like visual art, and even though many readers don't read the poems in order, understanding a book's design is a way to deepen one's experience of the book. I like the idea of gesture (Latin, to carry) as a trope for a book's organization: How does the book carry itself, and how does it move the reader? While many poets do this intuitively, and readers are highly disparate in their practices, I would like to try to make these principles explicit. In other words, I will ask how organization can provide a richer, more "writerly" (to use Roland Barthes' term) experience for the reader.

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