Simplicity.
01/08/2004 07:49 a.m.
A huge vocabulary is NOT the heart and soul of every writer's work.

I wrote a poem. That makes me so happy. I wrote a poem that I love for the first time in a while. And it's all thanks to barbara and an old text book. I dug up an old textbook of poetry that I absolutely love, and I read it. I remembered something I had forgotten by being on this (wonderful) site. YOU DO NOT NEED A HUGE VOCABULARY TO WRITE POETRY. Poetry is so simple. It's beautiful because anyone can be a a poet if they only try. This textbook was filled with pieces that did not baffle me with words from every nook, cranny and far stretching corner of the english language. But even in the absence of super-sophiticated language, these pieces were gorgeous. Absolutely stunning.

And it made me think. It's easy to write a poem with huge words. On here it can even be more satisfying to do so, because we seem to get our fill of comments if we do. But to write beautiful poetry, poetry that is stunning whether you say the word "big" or "humungus", I think that's what takes work. I can't do it yet, but one day I'll be able to. I think doing that takes a long, long time. And a little luck.

As for Barbara, she's dropped my jaw with poems that convey so much emotion without the confuzzling language. She's never really used anything more than common place vocab, and I think she'll become a better writer than most of us because she's learning how to write good stuff NOW, and not relying on huge words to save her. I look like a hypocrit for writing this entry, so I'll say this: Big words in poetry aren't bad, they can even be fantastic (c'mon, just LOOK at Aiko's stuff, it's gorgeous), but it shouldn't be the scale we measure all our stuff on.

lol, THAT scale is "comment count."





Just kidding, guys.
I am currently Good
I am listening to tv in the living room