A Lot of White Space

I’ve quit defining poetry! If the author says it’s a poem, it is: even if it doesn’t look or sound like anything I’d call a poem. The best definition I’ve heard is “a poem is a piece of writing with a lot of white space around it.” Works every time.

If a definition helps us recognize something, a lack of definition may deny us a common body of evidence -- no specific specimens to study. And yet, we feel comfortable thinking, writing, and debating poetics or poesy.

Much poetry remains private, read only by the poet. But each poem had its creative impulse from some inner catalyst. Should the poem be read by another or read aloud before others, the poet will stand emotionally naked. Not just bared to the skin. Bared to the very depths of the poet's soul.

And that last idea helps identify a source of much -- possibly all -- poetry. However, I think of my poetry as a commingling of soul with intellect, i.e. the mental processes. Language, the seat of intellect, is the medium by which the soul evidences itself in physical reality. John the apostle might have had the same concept with logos -- the word.

And I think that element of soul residing in a poem searches for a kindred soul and/or for a void in need of filling. So, the poem leaves its author: leaves as either exhaled breath or spoken word or radio broadcast. And no matter what the poet thinks he said, the poem now means what the readers comprehend. Poet and readers may discuss, argue, or study the work, but the poet has no authority, no edge: they both are readers.

Here’s a poem I wrote 38 years ago. If you wish to see my 2010 revisions, e-mail me and I’ll send it to you.

awiglaf@comcast.net

THE GIFT

If I could write my love for Thee,

A gift for all posterity,

Then years from now some one might read

Take heed and look to Thee.

But just as likely as the first,

It is that this will die ‘fore me,

And thus my love will never spread,

Nor reach humanity.

Or better yet, a planter I shall be

A gift for all posterity,

And plant my love in fertile soil

For children all to see.

But just as apt is it to be

That none will care or see.

But while I ponder all my plans

A loving Father urges me

To do His bidding—“Live for Me!

Then all you touch will know

My love, through you they’ll know My gift

In you, the Lord they’ll see.

December 7, 1972