Authors Electric

Writers sometimes talk about poems as though longer automatically means deeper. We admire ambitious epics, book-length projects, and intricate sequences. There is certainly a place for all of those things. But every now and then a tiny poem arrives and quietly reminds us that a few words can carry an astonishing amount of weight. Take this poem, "Second Grade," by Merilee Johnson: That's it. Three lines. Eight words. And yet, the poem opens an entire world. I immediately find myself wondering about the child in the poem. Was she shy? Outgoing? Did she look forward to hearing her name each morning? Was the bus driver teasing, greeting, or celebrating her? Was it a song repeated every day, becoming part of the rhythm of childhood? The poem never tells us. Instead, it trusts us. One of the remarkable things about very short poems is how much they rely on the reader. Longer works often have room to explain, develop, and elaborate. A poem like this succeeds because it provides...

  Have you been to a poetry reading where some of the poets read in the same way? The stretched pauses. The careful pacing. The slightly mystical cadence. The voice that quietly announces, “This is a poem.” If you have, you'll know that the prior   sentence, in “poetry voice,” would probably sound like this: The voice  that quietly  announces,  “This is a poem.” And it would be read with rising inflection at the end of every line, like everything was a question, or a revelation, or both. A recent  New York Times  piece looks at this, often called the “poet voice,” and asks why so many poets end up reading their work in nearly identical ways.  Poetry lives in two spaces at once. On the page, it’s quiet, interior, personal. Out loud, it becomes physical and shared. Breath matters. Silence matters. Tone matters. Pace matters. The same poem can feel like a different piece of writing depending on how it’s voiced. But sometimes readings by different po...