Poetry (pen) Pals #16

The use of white space in poetry

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Hello my friends,

I think I mentioned a few weeks back (on the week that we played with blackout poetry) that I have been fascinated by the use of white space in poetry recently. The blank sheet of paper around and within and underneath the text. The spaces. The silences. The bit that when it comes to writing my own poems, I find both exciting and daunting.

With certain poetry forms, it feels like there’s less pressure to think about the white space. The structure holds you in place and you just fill in the gaps (just like that, easy hey, ha). But undoubtedly because I am still a beginner, I find form tricky. So, often, I don’t effectively choose one. I just throw myself into a poem (which I do really enjoy doing) and tend to end up shoving line breaks and stanzas in as I go along. Not without consideration, but without considered, consideration. Or maybe more accurately, skilled consideration. Basically, without enough consideration.

And yet, deciding on stanza or line breaks in this way can feel freeing. Playing with the visuals of a poem on the page can be fun. After all, there are none of the limitations that you get with writing prose. You have the whole page to play with - imagine that. For me, prose is a lined notebook full of fairly well-established rules about how words best fit on those lines, form wise. But poetry is the blank notebook. Which you can’t help but rub your fingers across while making an “oooooh” sound, pausing to notice the thickness of the paper and to wonder whether your pen might bleed through to the other side. I’m talking about poetry on the page here of course. You can use white space to mimic a deep breath, to mirror the meaning of your words, to play your poem’s tune.

And yet, that freedom does come with it’s own challenges, doesn’t it? Especially when you stop to think about it (or try and learn how to master it). This for me is the daunting bit.

When you then throw in punctuation and you read about the white space being the poem’s landscape, it’s pivotal environment, that it is in fact 50% of the poem (I made that figure up but basically that it’s really flaming important) well then (if you’re me) you end up finishing your now cold cup of tea and going to hang the washing out instead.

Unfortunately this post does not now continue with any sort of teaching on how to use white space better. I believe I’ve already mentioned that I’m no poetry teacher and that’s not what this Substack is about. But fear not, I am a keen learner and sharer and so have a little something this week that I thought we could try together. A little slip of a writing prompt, one of those that you could probably try while sat in a dentist’s waiting room. Which invites you to practise a little poetry writing without even realising you’re doing a little poetry writing. One that keeps us firmly in the playful, inviting camp, because that IS what this is all about. And if you’re here just to read some great poems, below you have a couple of those too.

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Your poetry writing prompt for this week:

This one actually comes from a book I recommend constantly - Kate Clanchy, How to Grow Your Own Poem. I’ve got a whole pile of books on writing poetry and this one has given me the most poems. It’s accessible, easy to read and contains some great poetry.

How to grow your own poem, Kate Clanchy

In it, Kate Clanchy suggests that it is helpful to think of the white space in a poem as time and space. And starting with time, she shares this poem by Simon Armitage:

Here’s another example I’ve found that shows white space being used to move time. This one isn’t slowing it down but rather moving it along, to great effect. Alongside the repetition of ‘and’ at the start of certain stanzas, you can see how pace is being created. This is Wood Song by Fiona Benson, from her collection Vertigo & Ghost:

Wood Song by Fiona Benson

Wood Song by Fiona Benson

Anyway, back to Kate Clanchy, who continues with a writing prompt:

“Try using the white space to slow down the action in your own poem. Think of a scene which happens slowly in your imagination….Try to think of the white space as resistant, heavy, something that you are pushing against or forging a path through….

Using the Simon Armitage poem as our guide, she suggests choosing a bodily or vivid scene. An exact moment.

“Detail it in just a few spare images…

Try laying it out down the page using lots of space….

You’ll need a satisfying metaphor to close.”

We might well need another Chat thread to share our efforts on this one on Friday, what with the limitations on poetry formatting on here (for new readers - look out for a separate post on Friday which invites the sharing of poetry from our community).

But it’s a good prompt, don’t you think? I’m drawn to the idea of practising really stripping the words back AND playing with how that slowing down is delivered using white space on the page.

Enjoy a week of slow-motion writing,

Nelly x