Todd Van Buskirk

There is an illustration (pixelated) that demonstrates all the 25 ways of combining two 4 X 2 LEGO bricks (each with eight pegs) printed on the cover of the book and on the frontispiece that is printed on page 2 (unnumbered). The (pixelated... Todd Van Buskirk

The phrase (after Christian Bok) does a variety of things: It cites him as the author of an earlier work ("The Great Order of the Universe") that inspired Van Buskirk who used the words. It adds another layer of meaning to the work who cites the author - now readers can look at both and see how the two are similar or differ. It creates a history about the topic under discussion that both informs and questions. It may constrain the current author to follow similar form, discuss similar topics or alternatively it might answer the previous poem, or offer a different view or.... even lead to something entirely new. In general, it honors the spirit of poetry by saying "this poet made me think". "The Great Order of the Universe" is a response to the fiftieth anniversary of the LEGO patent. Source: Poetry (July/August 2009)