"Absence" is a poem written by British writer Elizabeth Jennings. It was originally published in 1957 in A Sense of the World, the third collection of verses by the author. This collection is characterized by poems that pursue the same themes of isolation, loneliness, and the grief and mourning which arrives in the wake of loss.
"Absence" is a short poem exploring these themes through the prism of the narrator returning to a setting that was the last place at which the speaker met an unidentified person. The most notable aspect of the narrative is the purposeful lack of details. No identifying information is supplied about the speaker, the other person, or the circumstances of the loss. This ambiguity lends the poem a universality which allows readers to identify with the loss whether they are mourning the death of a loved one or a romantic breakup.
Elizabeth Jennings was a member of a British literary school known simply as "the Movement." Her place within this group lends the poem's ambiguity another dimension. Poetry by members of the Movement is nationalistic and strongly supportive of British traditionalism in the writing of poetry. The Movement coalesced together as a direct rejection of experimental Modernist poetry, especially as practiced by American writers. With this in mind, "Absence" can also be interpreted more broadly as an elegy for the loss of formal structure in the writing of poems. "Absence" is a poem that adheres to the rigid conventions of meter and rhyme. The Movement held such traditionalist approaches to crafting poetry in much higher esteem than "the earthquake tremor" of Modernism. Modernist poetry embraces free verse and celebrates the rejection of what was viewed as an outdated imposition of "rules" that writers were expected to follow.
The literary philosophy of the Movement thus allows for critical evaluation which transcends the surface quality of this poem. Background information about Elizabeth Jennings at the time of composition may possibly inform authorial intent. Her membership in good standing with the Movement may be enough to give this poem a socially broader implication than its simplicity indicates. Indeed, one of the foundational elements of the Movement was an adherence to the simple elegance of form rather than the rebellious subversion of formal structure.
