8. The Reader as an Activated Participant

Kushnir’s poetics also changes the role of the reader. In a conventional poem, the reader may expect the poet to provide sufficient transitions for interpretation. In a fold-based poem, some of that work is transferred to the reader. The poem does not explain every relation. It creates a field in which relations can be discovered.

This does not mean that anything can mean anything. The fragments are carefully selected and arranged. Their verbs, sounds, syntactic expectations, and historical implications create structured possibilities. Nevertheless, the reader must participate in producing the connection.

Exercise in Unfamiliar Understanding

The door says agricultural district.

The hand says mother.

The document says

temporary mineral adjustment.

The body says cold.

In the next language,

cold is written as a bird

refusing the northern branch.

In the language after that,

the bird is a number:

seven seven zero

one wing

no return

Please enter the number clearly.

I enter:

feather

feather

window

snow

The system replies:

meaning not recognized.

The bird replies:

continue.

The poem presents several systems for describing the same condition: institutional language, bodily sensation, image, number, and invented translation. None is entirely sufficient. “Temporary mineral adjustment” might refer to soil, medicine, industrial processing, or an administrative euphemism. The body simplifies the phrase to “cold.”

Cold is then translated into the image of a bird refusing a branch. That image is translated again into a numerical sequence. The speaker responds to the demand for a number with a sequence of images. The system rejects the answer, but the bird accepts it.

The reader is asked to decide which system possesses the greater understanding. The automated system recognizes only predetermined forms of meaning. The bird recognizes associative, poetic, and embodied communication.

This is Kushnir’s linguistic freedom in practice. The reader does not need a dictionary definition of every element. Meaning emerges through relation, repetition, transformation, and response. The poem trains the reader to tolerate uncertainty without surrendering interpretation.