SOUND SHAPES FORM

“Words above everything else, are in poetry, sounds.” – Wallace Stevens


The importance of this esoteric language moves beyond the scope of its technical mastery. The impact of words is not merely based on the meaning behind them, rather the spoken words are perceived as “creative living things” that “penetrate to the essence of what they describe. They give birth to meaning” (Houston 5). The primary stuff of the universe is vibratory, hence sonic in nature. It is the creative power of the word that initiates many creation stories across cultures. The book of Genesis reads, “In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And later in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” In the Bible, God only had to say, "Let there be light"; and there was light. Figuratively, the “light” is the illuminating power of the word—distinguishing objects and articulating “what is/truth” in a realm of “darkness” or ignorance and lack of communication. Similarly, at the opening of the Hindu Rg Veda’s creation hymn, Nasadiya, where “There was neither non-existence nor existence.” Everything was water and “the life force” known as prana or breath “was covered with emptiness,” but “that one arose” from the tapas or “the power of heat” and:

4 Desire came upon that one in the beginning; that was the first seed of mind. Poets [Kavi designates a poet or saint] seeking in their heart with wisdom found the bond of existence in non-existence.

5 Their cord [bond or a kind of measuring cord by which the poets delimit—and hence create the elements] was extended across. Was there below? Was there above? There were seed-placers; there were powers. There was impulse beneath; there was giving-forth above.


The initial “seed of mind” was the Desire to create something out of nothing. It is from “the desire of Poets” that any distinguishing features of life arose.

According to the developing scientific field of string theory, “the entire universe may be made up of infinitesimally small subatomic strands of energy vibrating at different frequencies” (Paul 121).