I’m interested in the paradoxical nature of …..–that it requires silence in order to break silence. Adrienne Rich–whom I know I keep returning to–recognizes this phenomenon in her essay “Arts of the Possible,” explaining how “[t]he impulse to create begins–often terribly and fearfully–in a tunnel of silence. Every real poem is the breaking of an existing silence, and the first question we ask any poem is, What kind of voice is breaking silence, and what kind of silence is being broken.”
Gendlin, too, addresses the anxiety surrounding silence and breaking silence in order to create a felt sense, but only briefly; he says, “Silences make some people uncomfortable; they feel a need to keep talking so they find other thigns to say. But if they can stand the silence, they may keep their attention on the ….., on that edge where there is more, but no more can be said” (26).
I suppose this edge (the cusp of realization, of knowing) is where we want to take our students in the writing classroom. Can this edge only be reached through uncomfortable silences? How do we productively unsettle our students? Rich and Gendlin have me wondering how poetry might facilitate this (focusing exercises centered on formal constraints, image work, etc.).
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This topic was modified 11 years ago by .
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This topic was modified 11 years ago by .
