In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.

William Blake

My dear fellow poets, I’m Dora @PilgrimDreams.com. Welcome to the dVerse Poets Pub, this boldly creative hub and liminal space. Why a liminal space, you ask? Well, because it is an “in between” place, a passage with many doors which we traverse to get to one another, from one blog to another, one poem to another.

The word liminal comes from the Latin root limen which means “threshold.”

In general, a liminal space can be looked at in three ways:

1) as an empty structural space (an overgrown, ruined fairground, shuttered department store once familiar like K-Marts here in the U.S., an abandoned shopping center or mall, a silent nighttime hotel corridor); OR
2) as a place of transit (a hotel lobby, an airport terminal, or a parking garage, gas/petrol station or a city street at night); OR
3) a passage in a more abstract sense, e.g., New Year’s Eve, a decade’s close, a birthday, anniversary, or holi(holy)day.

As you think on these liminal spaces, ask yourself this: is a poem like a liminal space?

A liminal space sharpens our senses to the possible.

If you’ve been in an empty parking garage or hotel corridor at night, perhaps you’ve felt an inchoate threat, a frisson of fear, a heightened sense of your vulnerability, or at the very least, an eerie loneliness. On the other hand, once you’ve passed through security at a crowded airport and arrived at your terminal, you can relax in your anonymity and explore your surroundings freely. Both types of spaces can cause anxiety or curiosity or a mixture of both.

The Japanese German bilingual poet Tawada Yōko feels free to explore his temporary comradery with men in the liminal space of a train platform. The lyrical voice empathizes and observes, at once present and disconnected.¹

Cigarette? (excerpt)

Next to this old guy I want to stay for a while
Smoke going cold
bitter
the burnt smell of dried-up men
gathering who fled from the salty moisture of diapers
[…] dry like the ink of yesterday’s newspaper
the back of the nose hurts
the platform is‚ my ‘home’
giant iron, the train rolls in
iron double doors open
to summer‘s fresh batch
of boys […]
even if they laugh at him
he does not lift his eyes
from the exchange of loving gazes with his cigarette
The old guy with the earthen face
next to whom I
just for a little while longer
want to sit.

---

No doubt there is a certain amount of traveling blues jumbled with awkwardness and alienation going through such spaces.

In “It would be water” by Kathy Engel, the liminal space is prized for its anonymity, but gives way to what the poet in her marginal notes describes as:

The alone and the not alone. The ongoing. When and how one can or can’t show up in the way one hopes to. The liminal space between what we call living and what we call dead. What poems offer.

Liminal architectures give us room to experience or observe moments of conjoining or leave-taking which otherwise remain obscured. Atmospherically, empty structural spaces like midnight hotel hallways and city streets (see painting above by Mark Harrison) or abandoned fairgrounds and shuttered K-Marts are far more surreal and unsettling than a place of transit.

But a liminal space can also act as a womb, a safe place from which to absorb and anticipate the eventual departure and arrival of life’s inevitable movements, preparatory to embracing them.

At a Motel Near O’Hare Airport by Jane Kenyon

I sit by the window all morning
watching the planes make final approaches.
Each of them gathers and steadies itself
like a horse clearing a jump.

I look up to see them pass,
so close I can see the rivets
on their bellies, and under their wings,
and at first I feel ashamed,
as if I had looked up a woman’s skirt.

How beautiful that one is,
slim-bodied and delicate
as a fox, poised and intent
on stealing a chicken
from a farmyard.

And now a larger one, its
tail shaped like a whale’s.
They call it sounding
when a whale dives,
and the tail comes out of the water
and flashes in the light
before going under

Here comes a 747,
slower than the rest,
phenomenal; like some huge
basketball player
clearing space for himself
under the basket.

How wonderful to be that big
and to fly through the air,
and to make so great a shadow
in the parking lot of a motel.

---

In his poem “Now,” Denis Johnson speaks of the poet’s relation to the liminal, this “space between spaces,” a space that is defined only by its in-between state “where nothing speaks,” “a space without territory” (“espace sans terri-toire”) as the philosopher Jacques Derrida puts it.²

Now (excerpt)

I am here at the waters
because in this space between spaces
where nothing speaks,
I am what it says.
—Denis Johnson, “Now,” (lines 46-50), 1995

For contemporary poet Mary Ruefle, a liminal space is the “museum of everyday life,” tucked in the larger space of weeks, months and years.

Inglenook by Mary Ruefle

I live in the museum of
everyday life,
where the thimble is hidden
anew every week and often
takes five days to find.
Once it was simply lying
(laying?) on the floor
and I missed it,
looking inside my mouth.
A grease fire in the inglenook!
That took a lot of soda!
Free admission, but guests
are required to face-wash
before entering and
tooth-clean before leaving.
Open daily, the doorknobs
are covered with curated
fingerprints, and pass
on the latest news.

George Herbert, the 17th-century metaphysical poet, describes the elements of sacramental Communion (bread and wine) as a familiar yet enigmatic passageway – a liminal space – through which grace enters the soul.

The H. Communion (excerpt)

Onely thy grace, which with these elements comes,
Knoweth the ready way,
And hath the privie key,
Op’ning the soul’s most subtile rooms:
While those to spirits refin’d, at doore attend
Despatches from their friend.

---

So can a poem itself be a liminal space? Perhaps, as Engel says above, it can be one of the things a poem offers.

We began by saying that a liminal space sharpens our senses to the possible. In the following poem, Emily Dickinson designs one composed entirely of possibility, a transformative one.

I dwell in Possibility

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –

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Our challenge? Using one of the three types of liminal spaces listed above, let’s give poetic voice to what “doors” it may open to us. You can employ the liminal space as the setting and/or the subject. Write about it as an observer or participant, of how it may prepare, ground, provoke, intrigue you, unexpectedly or not, for better or worse. You may want to use an image (like those above) for inspiration. I just want you to have fun exploring the idea of a liminal space and seeing what you can come up with.

New to dVerse? Here’s how to join in:
* Write a poem in response to the challenge.
* Post your poem on your blog and link back to this post.
* Enter your name and the link directly to your actual post (not your blog or website) by clicking Mr. Linky below (remember to check the little box to accept the use/privacy policy).
* You will find links to other poets and more will join, so please do check 
back later in order to read their poems.
* Read and comment on your fellow poets’ work– there’s so much to derive from reading each other’s writing: inspiration, new approaches, new friends.
* Enjoy!