Connie Voisine: What is big as an elephant but weighs nothing at all?* or The Riddle in the Lyric Poem (January 2013)

Northrup Frye calls the riddle “essentially a charm in reverse . . . the revolt of the intelligence against the hypnotic power of commanding words.” This struggle, between mystery and sense, is explored in Voisine’s lecture, using the riddle poem as a launching point. In considering how we respond to a good riddle—the epiphanic moment, the flash of comprehension, the way we are moved beyond the immediate, physical world—Voisine explores the ways in which lyric poems are riddles of a sort.

*The shadow of the elephant.