  Poetry
This week: What does water taste like? Edited by: Fyn  
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“Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers "Please will you do the job for me."”~~C.S. Lewis
“If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.”~~ Henry David Thoreau
“Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves”
Joseph Addison
"The advantage of writing from experience is that it often provides you with details that you would never think of yourself, no matter how rich your imagination. And specificity in description is something every writer should strive for."~~Christopher Paolini
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What does water taste like? Think about it for a moment ... or ten. Fresh, wet, cold, tepid, flat, sparkling? Hmmm. Not taste exactly, now, is it? Those words describe the state of the water, but not how it tastes. How good (or bad) might be in direct connection to how badly a person desires said water. If you've just crawled through five miles of sandy desert in the blazing sun, the water at the oasis will taste wonderful regardless if it is cool, brackish, or reminds you of drinking a sulfur cocktail! (Kind of like our water at home when we need salt in the water softener!) Or if you are told to drink down a quart of water before a medical procedure, it becomes far less about taste than the feeling you are going to explode, regardless if it is the best water you've ever tasted. It still will be difficult to actually describe. Yet water does have a taste.
Whether you are writing a descriptive passage or a poem, it is the descriptions, the fresh, new way of looking at an idea that will make the concept pop, explode upon your consciousness so that you think, Yes! That's it exactly. Or, I wish I could taste water like that or perhaps, I'd happily die before drinking that! Descriptions need to connect and create a reaction. Perhaps, only a little bit of one, but (in the case of water, for example,) they still need to transfer a feeling, a memory, a swirl of tongue around the inside of your mouth or a momentary space of thought.
Consider the moon. We've all seen it. It is oft described. A silvered orb, a cratered face, a goddess or ... and on and on. It is when we, as writers or poets, shine when we can put together a series of words to reflect a new image upon the moon, give it new dimension or a fresh description. As poets, we need to reach out, grasping for words from the tips of our fingers before they touch keys, to pull in a new combination of words to describe that which has been described countless times before. Else-wise, we fall to using the trite, the hackneyed, the cliched and we, in essence, short change ourselves as writers. We must play with words and word combinations. It is, after all, what we as wordsmiths DO!
Especially in poetry, it is the essence of what we are doing--coming up with a different way to describe a thought, an emotion, a series of happenstances or an action/reaction in a way that is new, different, and worth of remembrance. Those of us who live where snow falls have seen many different types of snow fall. We've seen the fluffy, magical snow in the fall that generates feelings of joy and anticipation. We've seen the mean, nasty, bites of water-laden snow that evokes hours of exhausting shoveling to come. We've seen it grey and dirty slushed to the side of the road or hiding a tire-flattening pothole. Nothing new there. We've all read of white blankets...perhaps a duvet instead or the gods having had a pillowfight. Sometimes, a single word different from the usual will prove the leaping off point for an entirely new way of describing something. Our minds are full to overflowing with words; it is how we combine them that makes up poets.
Imagine you are blind. Now describe that snow. Pinpricks of cold needling you? Feather touches? A hammer-blow of a snowball? That daily walk to the mailbox becomes something else entirely--difficult, treacherous, dangerous, daunting or, perhaps, exhilarating, adventurous and heartrendingly cold. Taking sight out of the equation can sometimes afford you an opportunity to find an unusual way of describing the usual. It is in these moments that we shine.
When using, as we all do, metaphors and similes in our writing, it becomes even more important to find that different way of expressing our thoughts. Two (one of each) that I've come up with strike me as a good way to show you what I mean. The first was a way of describing a 'V' of geese migrating.
Overhead
the Canada geese were shaftless arrows
shot from some instinctual bow
piercing the morning sky
with their raucous goodbyes.
The second was a way of describing mud.
Seemed like mud was slowly creeping into everything that Spring.
While in the distance flattened, yellow wintergrass held just a hint of green,
underfoot was slick with spongy, clinging mud.
People left tracks behind them; water oozing into heel-marks
like a snoopy neighbor into my kitchen.
They both give you a good description, bring to mind similar situations you've experienced and give clarity to the image I was trying to portray, bringing the reader within the confines of the poem. They give insights into both the visual and the speaker thus serving a double purpose.
Again, playing with words, sounds and images is integral to what we do. Don't shy away from unusual combinations of words. Don't be afraid to push yourself, to dig deeper, to find a new way of expressing that thought. We have millions of words stored in our minds. Find the ones hiding beneath the sludge that curls around the edges of un-dusted ceiling fans. Creep around in the cobwebbed corners of your brain's attic. Crawl under the front porch of memories, spiders and creepy-crawlies aside, and unearth the ones buried there. Move that fallen log blocking entrance to when you were a child and absolutely everything was new, alive and full of magical potential. Forget the thesaurus and keep a dictionary in the bathroom. You'll be amazed at the new words you discover and will find incredible uses for. Never stop picking up new words you find lying along the way. Stick them in the pocket of your mind. The words, like loose change, will become more than three dimes and a penny. They will become new expressions of yourself, fresh poetic musings and open the door to a undiscovered world in your mind of finely crafted, well worded poetry.
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In honor of the 70th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz...some old, some new...all vitally important!
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The distinct clickety-clack of an approaching train heralded the arrival of our destiny
#1226992 by Shannon  |
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Steve adding writing to ntbk.  says: 2014 was a poetic year for me. Thank you for the article, the picks, and the encouragement to go through the year in review.
I too want my legacy to be writing, and hope to have something for everyone who attends my funeral.
You are important to God; your loved ones; the WdC, and Copenator out!
Elfin Dragon-finally published  writes: Thank you for using my poem in your editor's picks. And I'd like to say this year was a great accomplishment for me in poetry as well. I wrote 63 poems this year. Smile True 30 of them were from the "April Writer's Poetry Month" Prompts Challenge. But 2014 was really the first great year of great poetry for me in a really long time. Thank you to everyone here at WDC for helping me to get my muse back.
monty31802 comments: I enjoyed the News Letter and thought on my years past. I have written a Novel, The Tall Man, (A flop) and The Family History which did me quite well and then the three since I have been here, Flying Free book of Poetry in 2002 with Countrymom then another with her A Long Road Home in 2004 That was a book of patriotic poems. The last was in 2012 A book of my favorite poems, My Last First Time, still available on Amazon, you got my brain working about me, Fyn. Thanks for stirring my brain.
Quihadi adds: Pictures are for passports, and if you still look like them you need the vacation...
Too funny!
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Poetry: January 28, 2015 Issue [#6799]
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