Nelson:

The first two images that pop into my head when reading your question are Diego Velázquez's famous painting "Las meninas" (1656) and M. C. Escher's well-known lithograph "Drawing hands" (1948).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Las_Meninas,_by_Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez,_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DrawingHands.jpg

I think that both may be considered meta-images. A large part of their aesthetic appeal derives from their internal references to the acts of their own creation. In the first example the reference is somewhat oblique, while in the second it is more explicit.

You´re absolutely right about "Las Meninas." Ortega y Gasset has called this painting a critique of the pure retina: it´s a painting about a painter painting. The same about the Escher etching applies. The hands are drawing each other into existence. There is humor here, as if the owner of the hands made himself invisible (unlike Velázquez) and endowed his own hands with autonomy-- the best-case scenario in the case of a plastic artist! The antithesis of the Escher would be Salvador Dalì's "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans" (1936), a premonition of the Spanish Civil War, in which a vast human body tries to destroy its own limbs.

Here is some meta-music, Nelson: Frank Zappa's "Variations on the Carlos Santana secret chord progression", from his album *Shut up 'n play yer guitar* (1981), in which the master of satire in rock pokes fun at the playing style of a colleague in a purely instrumental piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1GLdbNfyCw

Lol! I love that answer. In 1911 composer Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) had published and performed musical pastiches of 6 German (R. Strauss, Wagner, Brahms) and French (Faure, Deubbsy, Franck) composers. This collection was titled, "A la manière de..." (of Proustian inspiration). In 1913, taking a leaf from Casella´s book, Maurice Ravel composed two pastiches, "A la manière de... Borodine" and "A la manière de... Chabrier." "A la manière de... Borodine" is a beautiful waltz imitating some of Borodine´s pieces while letting enough of Ravel show through. "A la manière de... Chabrier" is more comical, because it is a double pastiche: It shows Chabrier imitating the manner of Gounod!

So just the literary part of your question remains unanswered, and nobody else is offering answers, so I'll step in once again. I don't have examples of poetry or essay at hand, but the masterpiece of writing about writing, with results analogous to the meta-images "Las meninas" and "Drawing hands," is Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's *El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha* (1605). The meta-narratives are woven into the entire work, and the same occurs in the second part (1615). These devices have been used since by many authors. One who did it well in more recent times, in my humble opinion, was Umberto Eco in *Il nome della rosa* (1980).

David, I know the metanovels well from "Don Quixote," on which I wrote an M.A. thesis. Thanks for refreshing my memory! Cervantes´ use of intercalated metanovels was imitated in ironic fashion by Miguel de Unamuno in his novel "Niebla" (1914).

I have been examining youtube versions of "A la manière de... Borodine" for you, and I have finally settled upon Alexandre Tharaud´s as the best, once you omit the commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v(equal sign)Paqedihsaiu

Thank you, Nelson. The link was broken, but I found the versión you mentioned without any trouble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaqedihsaiU

The music sounds great, but the meta-reference goes right over my head, as Borodine's work is absent from my musical memory.

I just realized that "Metafiction" doesn't have a question mark in your query, so the literary part remains completely unanswered. Hopefully someone will come up with some good examples of meta-poetry and meta-essay in the near future. I don't doubt that they exist, as meta-thinking seems to be a fundamental part of human cognition.

I just came up with an answer for meta-poetry. Nobel Prize winning poet Juan Ramón Jiménez regularly wrote poetry about writing poetry. He made his poor wife enclose him in a cork-insulated room to write such verse. Here is an example of a poem about a poem (J.R.J. had a penchant for reediting his own works):

"No le toques ya más,/ que así es la rosa." (Don´t touch it up any more,/ for such is the rose.)

I´m not a big fan of Juan Ramón, and I am sure that you or the silent others can come up with much better examples of lyric poetry about lyric poetry.

To supplement this answer, I wish to cite the article by Pankaj Sharma, "Metapoems and the Poetic Process: An Analysis of Elements of Mystery Attached to the Composition of Poetry," The Literati 3.1 (Summer 2013): 9-15, analyzing familiar English poetry as metapoetry (by analogy with metafiction). This fine article can be read here on Researchgate.

Your comment reminded me of a meta-reference in a verse in Nahuatl from 16th century New Spain that I worked on a few years ago. It may be found on folio 28r of the manuscript *Cantares mexicanos*, held by the Biblioteca Nacional de México. The singer addresses the monarch Moteuczoma. He becomes a bird, weaving his song from martial metaphors.

This is an excerpt from the original text:

"Ohuaya yehe nipatlantinemia ixpan dios a ninoçoçohuaya tlauhque /

chol çaquan quetzalin tlayahualolpapalotl mo pilihuitzetzeloa teix /

pana xochiatla quiquizcopa ohtlatoca yenocuic y yancoili Et."

Here is my translation into Castilian:

"Voy volando en la presencia de Dios, yo, la cuchareta rosada, la oropéndola, bato mis alas; la mariposa de plumas preciosas, rodeada, aletea con nobleza delante de las personas; mi canción, agua florida de la trompeta de caracol, sigue el camino, etcétera".

And in English:

"I am flying in God's presence, I, the roseate spoonbill, the oropendola, beat my wings; the butterfly of precious feathers, surrounded, flutters nobly before the people; my song, flowery water from the conch-shell trumpet, follows the path, et cetera."

Taking into account ancient central Mexican religious cosmovision, the metaphors are fairly transparent: God is the Sun (whose ancient name was masked to avoid inciting the ire of the clergy, which could have dire or even fatal consequences); the birds are the singing warrior, whose *teyolia* or animic essence would eventually manifest itself as a bird if he were to die on the field of battle or on the sacrificial altar; the plumed butterfly is another warrior, about to be killed; the flowery water that pours from the shell trumpet is a song, a musical manifestation of war itself. The path, or road, may also be a reference to the ecliptic, the celestial road followed by the Sun, the Moon and the planets; the Sun was accompanied by the animic essences of dead warriors from dawn to noon, and by the animic essences of women who had died during their first childbirth from noon to dusk.

The meta-poetry comes in at the end of the verse, where the song itself follows the warpath/ecliptic.

Whew! it was well-worth wading through all that glittering metaphor to get to the meta-poetry of the Aztec bard. It reminds me a bit of the "envoi" of Renaissance verse, wherein, after a long poem about a lost love, the poetic voice addresses the poem itself to criticize its harshness. Here is an example from Garcilaso de la Vega´s "Canción cuarta" (Fourth Song), which you probably know:

Canción, si quien te viere se espantare,

de la instabilidad y ligereza

y revuelta del vago pensamiento,

estable, grave y firme es el tormento

Song, if someone hearing you feels dismay

About your instability and flimsiness

And scrambling of your vague argument,

Stable, stern, and firm is my torment.

Meta-painting: check.

Meta-lithography: check.

Meta-music: check.

Meta-fiction: check.

Meta-poetry: check.

Meta-essay: ____.

O.K. Coming up. I think we can begin at the beginning of essay as a genre with Montaigne. If I can get to his text on line, I will give you an exact quote A.S:A.P.

Here is Michel de Montaigne´s preface to the reader of "Essais." It is an accurate English translation of his Renaissance French. As you will see, it is an essay about his essays:

The Author to the Reader.

READER, thou hast here an honest book; it doth at the outset forewarn thee that, in contriving the same, I have proposed to myself no other than a domestic and private end: I have had no consideration at all either to thy service or to my glory. My powers are not capable of any such design. I have dedicated it to the particular commodity of my kinsfolk and friends, so that, having lost me (which they must do shortly), they may therein recover some traits of my conditions and humours, and by that means preserve more whole, and more life-like, the knowledge they had of me. Had my intention been to seek the world’s favour, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties: I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint. My defects are therein to be read to the life, and any imperfections and my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me. If I had lived among those nations, which (they say) yet dwell under the sweet liberty of nature’s primitive laws, I assure thee I would most willingly have painted myself quite fully and quite naked. Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there’s no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject. Therefore farewell.

From Montaigne, the 12th June 1580

[So in the edition of 1595; the edition of 1588 has 12th June 1588]

From Montaigne, the 1st March 1580.

Meta-essay: check.

Ta daaa!

That was fun!

Looking back, I don't like all those hyphens I put between the prefix meta- and the nouns. If I could do it again, I would write "metimages," "metapainting," "metalithography," "metamusic," "metafiction," "metapoetry," "metessay," and "metareference."

(The Oxford Dictionaries site says to use "met-" before a vowel: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/meta-.)

Actually, I could do it again using the "Edit" button, but then this comment would make no sense.

Am I metametaing?

You are me(t)andering.

Just my two cents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamathematics

Artur,

David and I as humanists were omitting the sciences. Since you have brought up the subject of metamathematics, there have to be metalogic, metabiology, metachemistry, metastronomy, and even metamedicine, in short, scientific discourse about any mathematical science forming part of that same science. I would bet that these sciences exist, though perhaps under different names. Is anyone up to the challenge of demonstrating their existence?

I see :) It was meant as a bit of a joke given that metaphysics got snatched away from the physicists, so apologies if this didn't quite fit the discussion :)

On a bit more serious note, many good mathematicians claim, and not entirely without justification, that mathematics is actually an art, and one of the goals of mathematicians should be to create new mathematical knowledge which is beautiful, although, unlike the usual art, this beauty is often difficult to perceive for non-mathematicians. This is quite nicely discussed in the recent book Love and Math by Edward Frenkel.

By the way, I don't think that all that many mathematicians consider metamathematics as superior to the rest of mathematical knowledge.

Artur, thanks for the reference to the Frenkel book. I have been looking into meta- attached to the names of sciences, and have discovered many sciences that I did not know existed. Look under metalogic in Wikipedia, for instance. I would say that logic which examines its own foundations with logic is probably an invention of Edmund Husserl in "Logische Untersuchungen" (Logical Investigations), lst vol. (1900), 2nd vol. (1901). This book revolutionized both logic and philosophy at the same time, setting the foundations for the phenomenological movement. Later in 1927 Heidegger could speak of the Grundlagenkrise, the crisis of foundations in all the sciences. Husserl considered phenomenology superior to logic because more radical.

David Wright-Carr, in balmy Guanajuato, free of all this snow and cold, do not be so complacent: we omitted a huge meta- in the arts: metatheatre. Can you think of any good examples?

Well, Nelson, there hasn't been any snow (well maybe a bit in the mountains just north of Guanajuato), but buildings are not heated, so there isn't much gain. At 2000 meters above sea level it gets chilly. At present I have two sets of thermal underwear on, and wool gloves with holes in the fingers so I can type in comfort, and my feet are still cold, in spite of the two pairs of stockings. It was unseasonably cloudy and rainy over the last two weeks, so going out and warming up in the sunlight wasn't an option. Yesterday the cloud cover finally broke, happily. But talking about underwear is probably oversharing on a public discussion board, so I'll get back on topic.

There are many more areas to explore: metatheatre, metadance, metaperformance, metaconceptual art, metacuisine, metarchitecture, metaland art, metascupture, metafashion design, metajewelry, and so forth. I was just checking off items in your original question plus whatever else had been mentioned.

No examples of metatheatre come to mind at this moment. I'm sure this discussion has sensitized me to looking for the meta- in the arts, so whenever good examples come up I'll try to remember to get back to this thread and fill in the gaps.

Here is an example of metajewelry: a gold pendant, probably from the Mixtec region in southern Mexico, from the Late Postclassic period (A. D. 1200-1520). The jewel represents a man wearing jewels: a necklace supporting a pectoral ornament in the form of a mask with three gold bells, earrings with curved pendants, and a *bezote*, worn in a piercing under the lower lip.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mixtec_pendant.jpg

The famous Arch of Labná, in the Yucatán península, has representations of Maya houses with palm roofs over each of the doorways that flank the central vaulted passage, thus qualifying as metarchitecture.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Labn%C3%A1_by_Catherwood.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Labna_arco_W.jpg

David, you´re throwing so many Meso-American metas at me I am going to have to take an exquisite revenge, throwing at you myriad examples of metatheatre. "The play´s the thing," said Hamlet in Act 2, sc. 2, when he was about to put on a play within a play to make his uncle confess to having murdered his father. "All the world´s a stage," said Prospero in "The Tempest," I think, converting that play in its entirety into metatheatre. Another example is Calderon de la Barca´s "Great World Theatre," an auto sacramental representing history as unfolding on a stage with God the Author as producer and director. Any play having a play within itself could be interpreted as making a statement of metatheatre. I could hurl at you myriad examples of plays within plays, but limit myself to Pirandello´s "Six Characters in Search of an Author," wherein the characters are merely ideas gesticulating in the mind of a playwright. Manuel de Falla was influenced by Pirandello for his own puppet opera, "Retablo de maese Pedro" (The Tableau of Master Peter). Here you have large puppets (Don Quixote and Sancho) watching a smaller pupper theatre ("The Liberation of Melisendra from the Moors") (see "Don Quixote," Pt. II, ch. 26) until Don Quixote forgets he is watching puppets, takes them for real, and destroys them. So you have not merely metatheatre, but meta-puppet-theatre. Federico García Lorca was influenced by Pirandello and Falla in his own surrealist-style drama "The Public," whose main theme is metatheatre and whose work ends with disapproving theatregoers murdering the actors in an avant-garde production of "Romeo and Juliet."

Now I´ve got to take care of the scientific side of my original question and find out about metabiology, metamedicine, and metabotany.

Metatheatre: check.

Here is a piece of archaic Greek black-figure metaceramics.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plaque_Penteskouphia_MNB2858.jpg

The "Creation of Adam" scene in Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel could be considered a metamural, taking into account that a creator of human figures has represented the creation of the mythical first man.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Creation-of-adam.PNG

And the brain hypothesis to explain the forms around the Creator is intriguing. (An alternative hypothesis is that the image of the brain is a modern pareidolia.)

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=383532

http://www.mentalhealthandillness.com/creation_fr.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A681680

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/05/27/michelangelos-secret-message-in-the-sistine-chapel-a-juxtaposition-of-god-and-the-human-brain/

I had intended to give metart a rest, but the last two images popped into my head during lunch.

Of course the field of historiography, which may be defined as the history of histories, is an example of a metascience (at least when its practitioners follow the ground rules for scientific inquiry).

David, have we spoken about metamovies like "A Star is Born" with Judy Garland and James Mason and "Sunset Boulevard" with Gloria Swanson? They are movies about moviemaking, with the second here mentioned far superior, to my mind, than the first. I am trying to think of metamusicals, but my mind is drawing a blank.

I cheated and found this blog devoted to American theatre about theatre:

http://americantheatrewing.org/blog/2011/01/03/an-awful-lot-of-plays-musicals-about-theatre/

"Mr. Bean's Holiday" (2007) has a central leitmotiv involving the main character (played by Rowan Atkinson) making video recordings, and there is a subplot about a narcissistic film director (played by Willem Dafoe), so it fits into the category of metamovies.

While this film is not a true musical, there is a musical number somewhere around the middle, combined with the video theme, in which Mr. Bean tries his hand at busking in a French market square.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U9hKBEGLN8

In the closing scene the film morphs completely into the musical genre, again incorporating the video-making leitmotiv.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m9dtB6CT50

Oh, and don't forget "Singing in the Rain" (1952), which is a classic metamovie and lies within the musical genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqsrVQfNYPc

Clever answers! But I am getting sidetracked by metart from metascience.

Good luck, and may you have pleasant metadreams tonight.

For anyone curious about metachemistry, I herewith present the evidence that it´s been posited by Gaston Bachelard and carried forward by Nordmann. Physics is to metaphysics as chemistry is to metachemistry.

http://www.philosophie.tu-darmstadt.de/media/institut_fuer_philosophie/diesunddas/nordmann/metachemistry.pdf

Artur Sergyeyev, this is for you. Gregory Chaitlin has invented metabiology. The genetic code is the computer program of life. Instead of studying chance mutations of DNA, the metamathematician Chaitlin studies chance mutations of computer programs. His study confirms the theories of mutation and evolution of Darwin through mathematics. This explanation is to be found in his book "Metabiología: los orígenes de la creatividad biológica" [Metabiology: The Origins of Biological Creativity]. For anyone who reads Spanish, I have copied the website here of his book:

http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/investigacion_y_ciencia2.pdf

You can also find Gregory Chaitlin´s personal web page in English.

@Nelson: Thanks, will have a look :)

Notes on METASOCIOLOGY:

I found metaosociology in an chapter by Francesco Villa titled

SOCIOLOGY AND METASOCIOLOGY IN PAUL HANLY FURFEY

and found in http://www.crvp.org/book/Series01/I'32/chapter-3.htm.

Here I quote from Villa:

The term metasociology was first used by Paul Furfey in his Metasociological Treatise of 1953, on the Scope and Method of Sociology, with its second edition twelve years later, which I use in the present context. According to Furfey:

A special science is called for to furnish and apply principles for the construction and criticism of a valid sociology. This science will be called metasociology;it is defined as an auxiliary science whose function is to determine for sociology criteria of scientific quality and criteria of relevance together with their practical application. In other words, it is metasociology that furnishes the methodological presuppositions necessary for carrying out sociological research, constructing sociological systems, and criticizing such research and such systems after they have been completed. (Furfey 1965: 8)

Moreover, according to Furfey, the tasks of metasociology are three:

It must yield criteria for distinguishing scientific knowledge from non-scientific knowlwdge in the area in which sociology operates; these are criteria of scientific quality.

It must yeld criteria for distinguishing what is relevant to sociology from what is not, thus defining the field of the science; these are criteria of relevance.

It must furnish practical procedural rules for applying these criteria in practical sociological research.

It should be immediately clear that metasociology is a science distinct from sociology. Two sciences are distinct if their subject matter is different. But metasociology and sociology have different matter. Therefore they are distinct sciences. The subject matter of sociology is something existing in the real world of men and events, whereas the subject matter of metasociology is sociology itself. Thus the proposition, "Propaganda is one means of social control",is a proposition about human group life and belongs to sociology, whereas the proposition, "Sociology is a science," is a propostion about human life and belongs to metasociology. (Furfey 1965:9)

Metasociology in such a meaning in Furfey’s study is made to refer to logic in general and to logic of science, as well as to axiology in terms of the value judgment evaluations implied by sociological knowledge and by its postulates. We may then conclude that Furfey distinguishes metasociology, meant as an auxiliary science of a logical and axiological character, from sociology: that is to say that while sociology investigates society, metasociology investigates sociology itself, i.e. its logical criteria – in relation with general logic and the logic of science – as well as value judgments, in relation with axiology, as indicated in the graph below

For those of you interested in metasociology, I found another excellent article on one of my favorite philosophers Martin Buber. In "Politics and Meta-Sociology" by Paul Mendes-Flohr, Archive de sci. soc. des Religions, 1958, 60/6 (July-Sept), 67-82, the term "metasociology" is used in the sense of a science BEYOND sociology.

Mendes-Flohr examines the relationships between Buber and German sociology, especially Tönnies, Dilthey, and Simmel. He stresses Simmel´s impact between 1906 and 12. Also at the time, Buber is emphasizing mysticism. The two poles of sociology and mysticism enter into dialogue in Buber´s thought in his attempt to reconcile his social and religious concerns. In Buber, Mendes-Flohr maintains, the relationship between man and God is essentially meta-political and meta-sociological.

Since this thread has turned into a useful survey of metadisciplines, we can´t dispense with Haydn White´s "Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in 19th-century Europe." (1973).

On the second page of his Introduction White stated:

"My own analysis of the deep structure of the historical imagination of Nineteenth century Europe is intended to provide a new perspective on the current debate over the nature and function of historical knowledge."

The theoretical framework is outlined in the first 50 pages of the book which considers in detail eight major figures of 19th-century history and philosophy of history. The larger context of historiography and writing in general is also considered. White's approach uses systematically a fourfold structural schema with two terms mediating between a pair of opposites.

The Wikipedia entry on White´s notion of metahistory is a very useful one, since it summarizes pro´s and con´s of White´s treatment of history as such. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metahistory

Gloria, going back to metaesthetics, you are saying that J. Safron-Foer may be innovating in the field of meta-dye cutting.

I would be interested to know whether your own particular research innovations could not without exaggeration be termed metapedagogy or meteducation. You take the traditional field of pedagogy or education and give it a tweak. Could you briefly describe here the traditional notions of education as you saw them and the innovations that you proposed in your major articles? This is relevant to metadisciplines in the social sciences.

Thanks, Gloria. Dismantling of old thinking presupposes a new thinking about the bases of that traditional discipline. This makes your research metapedagogy, although I have found on-line the use of that term to describe systems of thinking about education less radical and creative than yours.

Your analogy with Foer´s work is certainly apposite. It reminds me of Giacometti´s sculpture, which consists of taking classical sculpted forms and shaving away what he deems to be excesses. Like Foer, Giacometti obliges spectator to reflect on the traditional forms that each artist has abandoned in order to innovate. This reflection creates metasculpture.

Gloria, it is characteristic of metaesthetics to bring rehearsals onstage as part of the finished performance. Brecht was extending the limits of theatre. Pirandello´s most revolutionary play, "Six Characters in Search of an Author," consisted of a rehearsal (in the dramatist´s head) of the eventual play. Ravel´s deepest piano concerto, "Concerto for the Left Hand Alone," begins with what sounds like the lowest instruments rehearsing their parts. Of course, there is David Charles Wright-Carr, that authority on the painting of the Baroque artist Diego Velázquez, who will tell you that the artist painted an unfinished portrait of his slave Juan de Pareja, so that the model could carry that magnificent portrait around with him as a "dress rehearsal," so to speak, for richer patrons to beg the artist for their own portraits. I confess I never knew about Eskimo carvers with their demanding stones, which would not tolerate anything but finished perfection. Yet what do stones know about metaesthetics like us human beings?

Here follows scribbling on the art/science of meta-metaphor. The word "meta-phor" means a transference (of meaning) from one plane to another. Yet the transference can take place in two directions, forward and inward.

We mostly envision metadisciplines on a horizontal plane, adding breadth to our considerations by reflecting on them as disciplines, but sacrificing depth. Metaphors often mirror us as we are writing them into being. Hence they refer down and inward to our own activities. French poet Stéphane Mallarmé in an essay equates a ballet dancer to a bodily writing ("écriture corporelle") which would require paragraphs in descriptive prose to express otherwise: she is a poem detached from every appearance of a scribe. She is a living metaphor (métaphore) of a sword, a cup a flower. Note that Mallarme equates writing to omitting the unnecessary and expressing much with few signs. His poetry does just that.

Poets often make unusual metaphors reflecting back on the act of metaphor-making. These are meta-metaphors. Baroque poet Góngora ("Soledad Primera, lines 606, 609-10), depicts swift-flying cranes as "forming chance characters/ on the diaphanous paper of the sky." 20th century Spanish poet Antonio Machado ("Soledades") pictures a white stork in sleepy flight as "a scribble,/serene and badly formed, so nonsensical!/ upon the bell-tower." Are there any other metaphors that refer back to the act of writing itself? A whole anthology could be published on the theme. Meta-metaphors are beautiful in themselves, yet give insights into the act of writing.

I love your writing style Nelson. I just noticed meta-RG. There are a few questions in RG on the topic of RG itself. does that qualify? PS thank you for the idea of meta-phor. I love words, especially English words, although the Germans have excellent words too.

Yes, Mark, it qualifies. I want to quote you, as a word-lover, some metapoetry written by one of my favorite poets, Elinor Wylie: "I love smooth words like gold-enameled fish/ that circle slowly with a silken swish."

Magic!

I have written and performed a small amount of slam poetry. One of them is about writing slam poetry. A few lines are:

On the page my poems slumber, unmoved and unmoving, only truly awoken when spoken. When held in the mouth of someone who cares how they gallop or canter or trot across space to dance on the drum of your ear. The vibration of speech makes the air that we breathe, truly seethe with significance, or not.

Good vibrations are needed to make the words sing, to hear is to feel. To see is not real for my poems.

Hope it is interesting to you. I've appended the full poem in case you have a mild interest. It is obviously written for speaking not reading.

All poems, I feel, are written like all songs to be read for the (intimate) ear or to be spoken, so I definitely agree with you that poetry, like music, is performance. That your slam poetry says so is a good example of metapoetry. Many thanks, Mark, for "I write poetry!" I never expected that on this rich thread I could include an original poem of such fine quality!

Genial contribution in metapedagogy, Gloria. Write this up as an article if you´re so inclined. Giving young children freedom of imagination in class can´t be bad, provided the imagination is gently disciplined. The same is true of metapoetry, -music, and -theatre. Rigorous questioning is at the depth of thinking, apud Heidegger.

The most annoying meta- may be metasurveys. Many of us have often received surveys by telephone from businesses that give us a coupon or a prize for taking those surveys. Later, when surveys are followed up by surveys about those surveys-- whether too long, too short, to deep, too shallow-- the new "metasurveys" could not be more bothersome!

Metamusic would be music that is about how and why music works: why it is beautiful or pleasant, or just successful. Here's an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Cole Porter´s famous song "Begin the Beguine" is also music about music. Here are the lyrics:

When they begin

the beguine

it brings back the sound

of music so tender

it brings back a night

of tropical splendor

it brings back a memory of green

I'm with you once more

under the stars

and down by the shore

an orchestras playing

and even the palms

seem to be swaying

when they begin

the beguine

to live it again

is past all endeavor

except when that tune

clutches my heart

and there we are swearing to love forever

and promising never

never to part

a moments divine

what rapture serene

to clouds came along

to disperse the joys we had tasted

and now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted

I know but too well what they mean

so dont let them begin the beguine

let the love that was once a fire

remain an ember

let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember

when they begin the beguine

oh yes let them begin the beguine

make them play

til the stars that were there before

return above you

till you whisper to me

once more darling I love you

and we suddenly know what heaven we're in

when they begin

the beguine

Here is Xavier Cugat´s version of "Begin the Beguine." It´s a rumba not a beguine (which Cole Porter invented: there is only one "beguine" in the world, this genre with only one specimen!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-A2QKSziaE