Blank Beauty Analysis and connection
Blank Beauty Beautiful blank pages kiss our imaginations with backgrounds that demand precision Our black letters cross on tightrope lines curving without wavering across deep invisible currents These beautiful blank pages are promises of Reflections Our gentlest strokes of darkness upon light. Judith Pordon The poem Blank Beauty reflects over what attracts writers to write.
The poem personifies the blank paper in order to explain why writers do what they do and how the process starts in their head. The speakers are themselves writers and describe their feelings towards the “blank beauty” of a paper as well as the steps to writing. Throughout the poem, they contemplate their attraction mainly towards the charm of writing on a paper and creating a story or a poem. The first stanza, “Beautiful…precision” mainly depicts what feelings a blank paper creates in a writer. By reading the first stanza, we can imply that the speakers are saying that writers’ imagination is awake in the sight of a blank paper.
“Beautiful blank pages kiss our imagination” bests illustrates this sensation of a “kiss”, a sort of romance between the writer and the paper; a romance that will eventually give birth to a chef oeuvre. Further in the same stanza, the speakers add “with backgrounds that demand precision”, talking about writers’ past experiences from where imagination implants its roots. The speaker is therefore saying that writers draw their inspiration from their experiences and when in contact with the beauty of a blank paper, all those dissipate bits of the writers’ knowledge assemble to give shape to a mosaic of images that make up their imagination. In the second stanza, the speakers go further and talk about the words that are drawn upon the blank piece of paper once the writers decide to write. The speakers describe them as “black letters [crossing] on tightrope lines”, comparing metaphorically those letters as funambulists on ropes. This metaphor emphasizes the artistic and majestic part of writing because the speakers are implying that writing is like walking on a line fifty feet above the ground.
It is risky and at the same time exhilarating. The speakers are also suggesting that writing with grace is not easy and just like those funambulists, those letters may fall and ruin the show. Furthermore, the speakers make usage of another metaphor when saying that those black letters “[curve] without wavering across invisible currents”. This metaphor also accentuates the risk of writing. However, the speakers imply that a good writer would be able to pass beyond those obstacles, crossing the “tightrope lines” and “curving without wavering across the invisible currents”. The last stanza concludes this poem by talking about the outcome of what these gymnastics and twists of words create.
The speakers talk about “promises of reflection”, meaning that the result on the paper will be related to the writer. Just like a mirror, it will reflect the writer: will it be by his diction and tone or the mood he will create. When writing something, a writer always put bits of himself or in his writing to make it more efficient. Also, the stanza mentions “Our gentle strokes [are promises of] darkness upon light”. This is a reference to the thousands of words written on the ‘no-longer-blank piece’ of paper.
The speakers are saying that in a way, those words written on the paper bring an end to the “light” of the paper and the imagination of the writer until he or she finds another blank paper to write on. When reading this poem, I couldn’t help but relate this to myself. As being a writer, I constantly find myself charmed by the “blank beauty of the paper”. The sight of blank paper fascinates me in an indescribable way. With the pen in my hand, I can let those blank pages “kiss my imagination” and start writing and “curving without wavering across deep invisible currents”.
Writing is my passion, something that comes to me naturally. Stories will just form themselves in my mind, nurtured from past experiences and different information gathered from my senses. As soon as I lay my pen on a blank piece of paper, my mind breaks loose and releases all my most profound fantasies, my dearest wishes, my deepest fears and most secretive dreams. As the “black letters” given shape by my pen “cross” the paper, the story develops, grows and may or may not survive. Every time I look on a blank piece of paper, I see a window opening to the freedom of my own imagination, opening to my secret garden. Just like in the poem, those blank pages become “promises of reflections” because I can write about something meaningful to me and pass on a message.
As for the pen or pencil, it becomes the medium through which I can transfer this maelstrom of emotions, facts and fantasies onto this “beauty” that a blank paper is. With my “gentlest strokes” I can create a world. And when my writing is over and the paper no longer blank, I feel satisfied but also regretful because the “darkness” of my ink put an end to this romance between the blankness of the paper and I. To remediate to this feeling, I take another piece of blank paper to the process start all over again. That is why this poem appealed to me the most.
It totally reflected what I, as a writer, feel when I see something to write on: infinite possibilities.
