the poem demands attention: a silence otherwise mistaken

It strikes me that we read a poem differently from text than we do when we read a poem for workshop. There's a way in which we begin to care more fully about the workshop piece; as though the white fabric-wood woven somehow represents a sliver of the poet's life, whether biographical or not.

I do feel this way, sometimes when I read a "published" work; and given, I don't always feel this way about a workshop poem. But there is a sense with a workshop poem that we do feel the obligation of taking the time to get to know the poem, to get to know the voice behind the poem (not necessarily the poet), in order to better listen to what we need to hear--to be able to differentiate the whisper of what the poem is or needs to be.