POEM + KNOWLEDGE
AUTHOR NARRATION
Read by the author in the original English.
A VISUAL CHORUS OF COMPETING CERTAINTIES
The poem’s quiet admission remains at the center while three louder voices crowd it. Select or unselect the buttons below to silence each competing voice; quiet all three to reveal what they nearly drown out.
WHAT CAN BE HEARD
All three louder voices nearly drown out the quiet “I don’t know.”
A PRONUNCIATION RECONSIDERED
The poem’s last word is “susurrus.” I didn’t know I was giving it a pronunciation of my own.
susurrus noun · literary
A soft, continuous whispering or rustling.
Uncommon in everyday speech, the word nearly makes the sound it names: its repeated s’s seem to whisper.
In my reading, I lean on the beginning of the word, but with a soft, neutral vowel—not the long “soo” in the recorded variant below. I couldn’t find that combination among the dictionary pronunciations I checked. One stresses the beginning with “soo”; the other stresses the second syllable. To my ear, my version, all those hushed s sounds, is the most onomatopoeic. I prefer how it sounds at the poem’s end and intend to keep saying it that way.
02 · OFFICIAL PRONUNCIATION
SOO · suh · rus
The closing line, with first-syllable stress.
03 · OFFICIAL PRONUNCIATION
suh · SUR · us
The closing line, with second-syllable stress.
PATHS TO MISPLACED CONFIDENCE
These four concepts show how the mind can treat certainty as comforting, persuasive, or useful—even when it does not amount to knowledge.
01 / 04
THE CONCEPT
The need for cognitive closure is the desire for a clear, stable answer rather than continued ambiguity. It can appear as a preference for order and predictability, quick decisiveness, and discomfort with uncertainty.
READER DISCUSSION
This poem may have more to say.
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