Missingness (1)
Not what’s there, but what isn’t, suggested Elisa Gabbert in a New York Times1 article. That’s what distinguishes a poem from other kinds of writing.
I think poetry leaves something out. All texts leave something out, of course — otherwise they’d be infinite — but most of the time, more is left out of a poem. Verse, by forcing more white space on the page, is constantly reminding you of what’s not there. This absence of something, this hyper-present absence, is why prose poems take up less space than other prose forms; the longer they get, the less they feel like poems.
Gabbert’s notion is intriguing: a “hyper-present absence”, like divining that a hidden meaning is invisibly present in the holes of lace, so different from the tight weave of linen. Is that the secret power behind certain poems’ memorability?
It’s why fragments are automatically poetic: Erasure turns prose into poems. It’s why any text that’s alluringly cryptic or elusive — a road sign, assembly instructions — is described as poetic. The poetic is not merely beauty in language, but beauty in incoherence, in resistance to common sense.
This very resistance to common sense is what powers metaphor: revealing an unexpected connection that brings forth a new rightness, a light.
The missingness of poetry slows readers down, making them search for what can’t be found. The encounter is almost inherently frustrating, as though one could not possibly pay enough attention. This is useful. Frustration is erotic.
Erotic? Aha! Is that why some become so passionate about poetry?
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1. Elisa Gabbert, “The Shape of the Void: Toward a Definition of Poetry”, The Poetry Issue, New York Times, April 15, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/books/review/what-is-poetry.html