The Art of Silence

“The technology of silence

the rituals, etiquette

the blurring of terms

silence not absence” (Rich, 139-140)

Silence is often seen as an absence of sounds. In the poem “Cartographies of Silence” Adrienne Rich begins to break down that common word. Silence starts to become a process as Rich refers to silence as a “ritual and etiquette” (139). However, in other stanzas silence begins to become a way of communication. Rich constantly repeats, “silence not absence” (140).  One of the many interpretations of this could be that silence is just as loud as speaking. Rich also states silence is the “blueprint to life” (140). She evokes the thought that silence does in fact lay out life. Without silence, there would be no words. In order to create words, you must think about them. I believe that in this poem Rich is trying to change what we consider silence and make it a much more powerful word. She gives power and movement to silence. Even in the title, “Cartographies of Silence”, she shows how different unique maps of silence can be made. There’s an art to drawing maps just like there is an art to being silent. In the beginning of the poem Rich writes “a poem can begin with a lie. And be torn up” (139), while she goes on to say a conversation “cannot be torn” (139). This emphasizes how when you speak out loud, language can never be taken back but when you speak through silence, in this case poetry, you have to face what you wrote. However, like a map, silence is not the journey itself. Rich states “this is the silence I wanted to break in you” (141). Thus, silence creates a frame for life but it does not start the construction, therefore, there is a point where you must use silence to build and begin to speak.