Write Clear. Not Clever.
- A chapter from How To Write Evocative Poetry -
All words are valid, but some words are more appropriate to use than others. Our goal is to write evocative poetry, not to showcase our impressive vocabulary. It may make you feel smarter, but if it unintentionally goes over the reader’s head, or worse still, is used incorrectly, it will have the opposite of the desired effect.
The title of this section is purposely facetious but it does serve its purpose. Ideally my poetry can be read and understood (at least in a literal sense) by anyone with a rudimentary grasp of the language. I don’t want to have people needing to consult a dictionary or to feel inadequate or demoralised by my work. I want it to be accessible. That said, I also want it to be precise. I lean towards the first word that arises – rather than looking for ‘more complex’ alternatives. The only time I break this rule is when the ‘dumb’ word doesn’t convey the specific meaning I desire. During writing I may use it as a place holder, with a little note to remind me to find a better alternative.
In tomorrow I could have replaced ‘borrowing’ with ‘leveraging’, ‘loaning’, ‘renting’, ‘taking’, ‘obtaining’ etc. Whilst these alternatives would suffice, they wouldn’t have been as powerful.
tomorrow
i’m borrowing
from tomorrow
to pay
for today
In a page to listen, I chose to use the word ‘tragic’ because it best fits what I was trying to say. Potential (weaker) alternatives include ‘sad’, ‘calamitous’, ‘awful’, ‘dire’, ‘terrible’ etc.
a page to listen
my poems
are tragic
so that my life
isn’ti write
to release the demons
i invented
to protect myselfwhen I had
nothing else
i had a pen to speak
and a page to listen
Conversely, in Lifeblood I choose to use the words ‘lacerated’ and ‘writhes’, over the simpler options because these evoke imagery in one word, that could otherwise take a sentence, thus contradicting the ‘less is best’ advice from the previous section. Choose the best word for the job, regardless of how fancy or common it sounds.
Lifeblood
Not yet dead
The demon
Writhes
On the pageLacerated
By the light of attention
It stares
HorrifiedAs its lifeblood
Becomes the ink
Of its own
Eulogy
Summary
Avoid using fancy words when there is a simpler option. Don’t use a thesaurus to insert words you don’t know the meaning of. Chances are you will be saying something you aren’t fully intending, or else, needlessly complicating your work – Both of which will detract from the readability of the poem.
This chapter is from the book How To Write Evocative Poetry
