Today we complete the series of four talks on poetry with John Nieves, Associate Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies for English at Salisbury University. John will discuss the poetry of absence. What is absence? From a rational perspective, the question is fairly easy to answer, it is the fact that something is missing. The question becomes a little more difficult, however, when we ask, what it means to experience absence? Let me offer the suggestion that the content of absence is feeling. In his talk, John suggests that in lyric poetry the reader or listener participates in the poem unlike narrative poetry in which the auditor remains outside the story. Lyric poetry uses words and poetic devices like metaphor, simile, cadence, and others to evoke feelings within the reader or listener. And probably the deepest feeling is that evoked by the sense of absence. In fact, John argues that absence is the root of lyric poetry. Perhaps this is because of its mastery of what is unsaid or what can’t be said.
Chris Ranck is Delmarva Public Media's Executive Producer, Program Director and Automation Engineer.
