Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Great Regulars: It doesn't declaim.

It doesn't announce or preach. It acknowledges the gaps, the unspoken truths that rest quietly, as if between the lines. Intimacy requires a degree of silence, a listening. The line-breaks in a poem stop us, briefly, to listen. Notice the first line of [Jeanne Walker's] "Nursing," that ends "you hold so still." We can feel ourselves holding still for a second before we go on to the next line.

from Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record Eagle: On Poetry: Pausing for Mother's Day

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