On White Spaces Reading about Maggie O'Sullivan's approach to the page as a space for material (of writing) prompted me to experiment with writing on to a blank white sheet of paper instead of the lined paper I usually use. Having that pure white space, with no prompts or lines to hang words on, made me look at the space of a page differently. I saw the whole of the page as available to and part of the poem. Often, writing on lined paper, I arrange words down the left hand side of the page - an arrangement I have never really questioned or thought odd looking before. However on the unlined paper this arrangement seemed to become a huddling of the words - as if they were hugging the edge of the paper - perhaps not quite wanting to be seen in this wide open space? Certainly the words did not seem to use the space available to them - something like a newborn who hasn't discovered they can unfold and kick out their legs yet. It is interesting to realise how little notice I have taken of the medium I write on. I do write on paper until the poem is ready to transfer to the white space of the screen yet I've never thought about, or questioned, my habit of composing on a 'black-lined white space' which I later transfer to a 'blank white space'...
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October 2017
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