The artwork above features a brush-drawn circle called an ensō, a representation of enlightenment, the whole of the universe, or the ‘nothingness’ of existence. The ensō is a common symbol in traditional Zen-inspired Japanese art.
One of my favorite poems explores identity through the lens of being what-is-not. Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole” begins:
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing…
The speaker examines their identity through the context of what surrounds them, not what arises intrinsically from a ‘self.’ The speaker is whatever their surroundings are not. They exist only to define their opposite.
I suppose I love this poem because I love examinations of self and identity. When engaging with the question of who or what we are, we must eventually confront the idea of absence, or the void, or nothingness, because we have to confront the idea of death. What does existence mean if death is inevitable? Is death, in fact, and end to existence? Do we need one experience to be able to understand the other?
“Whatever I am / I am what is missing.” That’s a pretty strong statement on the futility of ego. Perhaps we are here only to fill in the gaps of something more permanent, or more real, however you’d describe that.
Write a poem that engages with the idea of absence. It can be about identity, as I’ve discussed above, but it can also be very different. The loss of someone you loved. An unslept-on side of the bed. A missing sock. Your lost phone. Let your mind attach to something that comes to you about absence, then go with it. Don’t think too hard. It’s a real rabbit hole of an idea. :-)
