THE SPACE BETWEEN
White space within a poem engages the reader on a visual level and evokes an aesthetic impression before the words are read. According to the typographer Jan Tschichold, “White space is to be regarded as an active element, not a passive background. It is the canvas and blank page, but it is also the silence.” In a holographic sense, no space exists between elements; the apparent void is always full. White space, or negative space, is geography, through boundary and organization, and allows the white to flood and create a moat, providing the reader with a visual demarcation and shape to the words themselves. White space can represent a blank to fill, no longer passive, but active and wanting. The reader participates in the experience, as always, but in this instance, space is bounded with suggestion, limited only by the reader’s imagination. The same white space can also provide a caesura: an interruption or break, a breath and pause. Punctuation and phonetics create natural caesura within both poetry and prose; however, the pacing of a poem is also impacted by the time it takes a reader to reach between words. Space can be employed actively as an antisymbol for punctuation or a metrical breath. Introduction of space or pause to the body of a poem—boundary, void, or medial—creates a spatial caesura, and the silence becomes an operating component of the work.
IT WAS TOO QUIET …
Silences are important. Saying much without saying anything, silence makes us uncomfortable. It creates stress. If you don’t think so, try asking someone for something, especially involving time or money, and then be quiet. Let the silence hang. Quiet makes the mind race. It wants to rush in and fill the gap, an innate reaction, to make the peace. Good salespeople know this. They count on it. In sales, the first person to talk after a big question loses. In writing, it’s not a matter of loss; it’s a matter of semiotics, or making meaning of the space within the text.
Good typography depends upon balance between words and space. A wall of copy is interpreted by the brain as just that—a wall. Large blocks of text are broken into two and three columns to provide visual and mental air. This is the same with line spacing and kerning: If the lines are too close or the text too tightly jammed, it can be off-putting. By the same token, those elements can be manipulated in reverse to achieve a disconcerting effect, not dissimilar from tension and release in music theory: tension and suspense build, then a shoal of release comes upon return to the tonic chord—balance. Poems,
