Whenever discrete poetic ‘texts’ –etymologically something woven– are organized by their author (or coauthors) into a collection, they form what I shall call a ‘contexture,’ a larger whole fabricated from integral parts. In other words, Frost’s ‘poem’ that is the ‘book itself’ is the contexture of the twenty-five poems it contains.
Perhaps no single word adequately conveys the special qualities of the poetic collection as an organized book: the contextuality provided for each poem by the larger frame within which it is placed, the intertextuality among poems so placed, and the resultant texture of resonance and meanings. I have recently proposed, however, that the word ‘contexture’ be used for such a purpose because of its utility in suggesting all three of these qualities without being restricted to any one.