invent something
do it like a ghost
with deadly seriousness
recipes for pie crust
fill us with hope
we are the wind
no one really knows us

Poetry is as close to silence as writing gets. What is the silence that poetry approaches?

In 1929, the British philosopher C. I. Lewis (not to be confused with C. S. Lewis the critic and author of theological works as well as books for children) coined the term quale (plural: qualia) for the ineffable property of a perception. The redness of red. The unique and indescribable scent of mock orange.

Creative writing also possesses quale. It’s often referred to as voice. Each work of creative writing has its own voice, which must be read to be experienced, for there are no words to convey it adequately other than the words of the piece itself. That mood, that feeling tone, that aura of psychic energy is the quale of written art.

Poetry, usually devoid of characters, plot and often even grammar, is almost pure verbal quale. Fiction writers perfume their stories with it.

Of what deprived beauty are the qualia of fiction invoked? Sigmund Freud informs us in Civilization and Its Discontents that “Man has become a kind of prosthetic god.” The prosthesis to which the father of all shrinks refers, of course, is our technological prowess. Chief - and central - among the “auxiliary organs” that Freud describes as “truly magnificent” but which “have not grown on [us] and ... still give [us] much trouble at times” is writing. With this artificial limb, we establish laws with the authority of Yahweh (“It is written.”), we create reality (through the descriptive process of the scientific method), and we embody mystery (the qualia of creative writing).