Sun, moon, water, sky, earth, star; these are the words that shape the circular component of Holt’s concrete poem. The poem alludes to the cosmos as it is contained by the various frames and reflections of the earth below, from the human eye, to a pool of water, to the lens of a camera. Human perception of the cosmos and its earthly accomplices are the driving force behind the larger part of Holt’s oeuvre. In this early work, Holt manages to fit her most influential concepts within the confines of a circle.

A series of dreary words (all beginning with the letter D) and their mirrored spellings (all ending with D) create an inverted triangle, descending in size and culminating with a final letter D. The downward movement of the words in this concrete poem evokes a sinking sadness, while their phonic similarity cloaks the words in monotony.  The second to last line is simply, “Da;” an utterance of exasperation, perhaps, or the disintegration of verbal coherence, with the final line, “D”, reducing the ideas behind the words to a linguistic abstraction.