by Christine Swint
I’m sure you’ve noticed the new Wordle prompt Dana started here on Read Write Poem. She’s been collecting favorite words from a variety of Read Write Poem participants and turning them into cool visuals for us to use as writing prompts.
Words are a poet’s stock in trade, this we know. Not only do we want to find adequate words, we are constantly on the prowl for the le mot juste. It has to sound right, look good next to its neighbors, and create a certain aura of luminosity, transcendence, darkness or depravity, depending on the poem.
Sometimes we turn to websites, like the one you’re reading now, for a jump start. A certain word, like Kimberlee’s Juicy, might be the combination of syllables you need to get your poetic engines revved.
There are tons of great sites on the web devoted to words and phrases. While you might have your favorites, here are a few I’ve looked at recently.
- The Phrase Finder, from the UK. This is a fun website because not only does it offer a thesaurus of phrases, it also explains and lists idioms from both sides of the pond.
- The Urban Dictionary has compiled slang terms and current word usage since 1999. They supply sentences illustrating the correct use of the term.
- Creativity Tools is a site Nathan told me about. There’s a random word generator with different categories, ranging from very common to obscure. When I asked for a very common, intransitive verb, I got “rotate.” When I changed the word complexity to obscure, I got “labiovelerize.” This latter term was right on the tip of your tongue, wasn’t it?
Of course the best way to find words you like is to read books by authors who write poems and stories you enjoy. Some poets have a way with turning words both exotic and mundane into seamless tapestries of images. I think the words must flow in their bloodstream after all the reading and writing they’ve done.
While I’m reading I keep my notebook next to me, and jot down words and phrases I like, or words that are new to me. Lately I’ve been reading Dog Years by Mark Doty, a poet and memoirist who recently won a National Book Award for his latest collection of poems, Fire to Fire. Here’s a list of words I’ve accumulated in the last few days: fey, bathos, inchoate, insouciance, gambrel, flinty, concatenation, clank, promontory, oviod.
We find words we like from a variety of sources, from conversations, comic books, the classics, dictionaries, TV, movies, any place people communicate in language. The idea is not to use the most arcane words we can find, but to find the ones that make our poems more uniquely us, a better reflection of the thoughts that are swimming around inside us. For me, that means reading a lot, and understanding the context in which the words are used. Of course we can always broaden the context, and find a new way to make a particular word come alive. That’s what poets do.
Do you have any new favorite words? If you like you can share them in the comments section, and tell us where you found them!
I also keep a notebook of words. Try these on Christine.
trumpery, lugubrious, panegyric, glower, cocksure
Happy T’giving,
Don
While playing with esoteric words may be intellectually interesting, here is a case for simple words, made by two well respected poets.
Robert Frost said about writing poetry, “I prefer words that are plain, the language of our every day life, as simple as I am able to make it.”
Billy Collins, a recent two-term U.S. Poet Laureate, said in an interview with Poetry magazine, ”I use language that is simple, understandable – the language of ordinary life. I avoid the obscure word – it makes poetry pretentious and inaccessible.”
I, too, avoid sesquipedalianism.
Thanks, Donald. I like ‘cocksure,’ of the ones you listed.
Rob, what I am talking about in the post is the idea of paying attention to words, not trying to find the most esoteric ones. Although an odd word might be just the one I need.
Good one, Phillip!
I *love* finding & looking up words I don’t know. I may use them in a poem. I may not. But finding new words, or playing with favorite odd ones sends my mind & emotions (& sometimes my body) down new paths & streams in new ways.
And that is what I need to do as a poet: explore.
If it is true that we think in words, then I want to expand my thinking, not reign it in. It may be that I come back around with an everyday word in my poem, but I betcha that traveling with an odd word will loosen new things in my brain, and in my writing.
I don’t collect the words in one place. I tend to jot them down in whatever notebook I am carrying. They do tend to be from books I am reading. (Yay, Mark Doty!) I wish I were disciplined enough to have one spot, a little treasure chest, to place my word finds.
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Indeed, poets are word-curious.
…deb
I understand your perspective, and I too find words fascinating — on a personal, private level.
I am an orator, and I find the sound of words spoken aloud, in a clear resonant voice, to be quite sensual.
Also, if I am writing a letter or an essay, I find the occasional ‘word less used’ can be engaging — as it invites the reader to probe… further investing them in what I’ve written.
But I, like Frost and Collins, prefer to make solid and immediate connection with my reader when writing poetry. I don’t want them scurrying to a dictionary to understand my meaning. I believe you lose the impact of immediacy when you distract the reader with ambiguity in poetry.
But to each their own — that’s what makes the world a beautiful wonder.
It’s not only “obscure” words/idioms that are double-edged swords. So are allusions. Think of how many poems are filled with these!
@rob – Regardless of one’s beliefs about the appropriateness of using less common words in poetry, I think it’s fairly axiomatic that anyone who calls herself a poet or writer has a duty to learn as many words as possible. My own (unattainable) goal is to use the one best word for every situation. This will sometimes turn out to be a very uncommon word indeed, whose obscurity can lend an aura of mystery to the surrounding passage. I personally like to be challenged when I read, so of course I try to write that kind of poem. I’m not interested in attracting or retaining a readership with a low tolerance for anything whose meaning is not immediately obvious. Billy Collins is quite welcome to that audience.
After this brief discussion, I wrote this post
Why turn your poem into an alien?
for poems that sit in blogs, and provides a choice for poets who might worry about a word or two.