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Making Every Word Count
By Bernadette Geyer
Poetry is distilled language; that is why it is not prose. While many other
types of writing pay by the word, poetry usually benefits from use of fewer
words. When I provide editorial feedback to poets submitting manuscripts to the
press I work for, I encourage them to revisit their poems with an eye to keeping
language tight and fresh. These problems can be addressed-- and usually fixed--
simply through attention to them in the poet's revision process with each poem.
When I talk about tight language, I mean no extra words. Think about how you
would tell a story to a friend. You might be casual and not think specifically
about the words you are using. But consider talking to someone in another
language. You may not know all the words in that language, so it might take you
a few moments to think of the "right" word to help you tell your story.
Poetry is sort of like talking in an unfamiliar language. There is a whole
dictionary full of familiar and unfamiliar words at your disposal, but finding
the perfect word can be the solution for turning a bland line into a powerful
line. The following are some helpful guidelines for revising your poetry with
tight, strong language.
#1: Pick Powerful Verbs
You may have seen those lists of action verbs created as a sort of "cheat sheet"
for building a resume. Instead of saying, "I have experience with press
releases, project management, contracts, and statistics," you might say you
"managed" projects, "evaluated" statistics, "drafted" press releases, and
"negotiated" contracts. Why be any less concerned with verbs when writing
poetry?
Along those lines, use vivid action verbs in your poems. A weak verb will
necessitate the use of an adverb to describe how the action is being done. A
river doesn't need to "move really slowly" when it can "slink" or "creep" along
its banks-- the elimination of the need for an adverb results in a much stronger
image with half the words. Why use three weak or common words to say what can be
said with one strong word?
On the other hand, using an unadorned verb can sometimes be boring if a metaphor
or simile will liven up the action beyond a mere cliché. The sun doesn't have to
simply "rise and shine," it can "open its eye to the new day." Readers may yawn
at a fish "swimming" past them, but if the fish "darts like a shooting star"
through the water, the reader gets a better idea of the speed and trajectory of
the fish, along with the pleasant image of the shooting star in an unexpected
place.
#2: Watch Out for an Abundance of Adjectives
Verbs are not the only problem for many poets. Although the adjectives can be
very useful for descriptions, they can be overused and misused. If you are
relying on adjectives to do your work, then you are not choosing strong nouns,
or you are choosing abstract nouns that don't provide your reader with any
information they can grab onto. Nouns like "justice" and "beauty" are abstract.
A reader can't "see" beauty or "hear" justice. What they can see or hear are
concrete examples of such.
Another good rule to keep in mind is: Don't rely on adjectives that require
judgment, such as "dark," "deep," and "strong." How dark is dark? Is it as dark
as the bottom of a well? Or is it as dark as tar melting under an August sun?
How deep is deep? Is it as deep as a thimble? Or is it as deep as the gaping
mouth of the Grand Canyon? How strong is strong? Is it as strong as the coffee
that's been left five hours on the burner? Or is it as strong as the memory of
your first kiss?
#3: Eradicate Prepositions
If you have a prepositional phrase in your poem, chances are you are not being
direct in a description. Poets must limit prepositional phrases to keep their
writing direct. For instance, if I were to write, "The ornament on the hood of
the car that was abandoned on the side of the road was glinting," the reader may
get completely lost before they realize that it was the ornament and not the
road that was glinting. A better way to describe the above scene would be, "The
abandoned car's hood ornament glinted from the roadside." That line is much more
succinct and the verb tense is stronger, more active. You also reduce the number
of prepositional phrases from four to one.
Make It AND Break It-- Line Breaks
Another problem common with many manuscripts I see is poor use of line breaks.
Line breaks are what distinguish poetry "visibly" from prose (except in the case
of prose poems, but that's a topic for another article). However, poetry is not
simply prose chopped into shorter lines by use of line breaks.
There are two ways of breaking a line. One is end-stopped, and one is enjambed.
An end-stopped line ends on punctuation, like a comma or a period. An enjambed
line breaks with no punctuation or point of natural pause. Most poems feature a
mixture of both ways of breaking lines. End-stopped lines can serve to slow a
poem's pace, while enjambed lines can quicken the poem's pace by keeping the
reader moving from one line to the next.
I would like to focus on the problems associated with enjambment, because so
many poets seem to see the location of line breaks within the syntax of the poem
as an arbitrary decision.
A poet should make sure line breaks work in service to the poem and that they
don't distract the reader from the poem itself. Choose the word you want to end
your line on carefully. For instance, consider a few ways of breaking the
following phrase, death has not touched me yet, which is from my poem "Elegy for
Bridges"--
death has
not touched
me yet.
While there is a rhythm based on each line consisting of a single iambic foot,
consider the power of this next arrangement, where death is emphasized by its
placement on its own line:
death
has not touched
me yet
The end word of a line is always emphasized by the fact that the reader holds it
in his mind until his eyes scan back to the beginning of the next line. Short
lines provide a sense of anxiety, as do line breaks that provide a surprise
twist:
death has not touched me
yet.
By placing "yet" on its own line, I've provided a surprise twist on the line
above it, and leave the reader with a sense of the implied foreboding of when
death will touch the speaker in the poem.
An Exercise
To put the above tips into action, take a poem that you've already written but
don't consider to be "finished." Look for any adverbs and eradicate them by
replacing the weak verb with a strong verb that needs no adverb to modify it.
When you've finished that, try revising your lines into couplets with individual
lines of no fewer than twelve syllables. What we are doing here is playing with
the line to elongate it. If your poems tend to have long lines to begin with,
try clipping the lines in half, but still paying attention to the word on which
you end the line, using the line break for emphasis or rhythmic purposes.
By playing with your poem in this way, you may discover hidden double-meanings
or tensions that can be evoked simply through use of enjambment. And with your
reborn attention to making every word count, you are well on your way to getting
your poem into its final, best form.
Bernadette Geyer's poetry and non-fiction have appeared in a wide variety of
venues including WRITER'S Journal, South Dakota Review,
Elle.com, Freelance Writer's Report, Sustainable Development International,
and World Energy Review. My poetry chapbook, What Remains, was published
by Argonne House Press in 2001. She founded the Resources for Poets website at
http://resources4poets.homestead.com, and has contributed book reviews to
several online newsletters and journals.
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