You’ve seen the term wordsmith once or twice before while perusing the many lists of poets available to read online. To think of a writer pounding away at white-hot letters fresh from the furnace is a strange notion, but it’s not as far from reality as many would believe. Think about it: if you were going into battle and needed a weapon, you wouldn’t ask a blacksmith to forge one out of plastic, right? No way! You’d want a weapon of steel or perhaps even magic! You can understand then why the words poets choose are so important: piecing letters and words together to create coherent and artistic pieces of writing isn’t a simple task. By starting out with the best materials possible, you can find the edge you need to emerge victorious.
Maybe you’ve been devouring poetry and novels since you could read, building your vocabulary word by word. Then again, you could be a young student with dyslexia, and because reading is the source of your greatest frustrations, you only know enough vocabulary to scrape by. Chances are you fall somewhere in between, but wherever you stand, as a poet, your words are your greatest tool. Without a healthy stock of vocabulary to choose from, your poetry can quickly become redundant. Vocabulary is sort of like a screwdriver to any contractor: each looks and feels pretty similar, but only the right one will get the job done right. In this chapter, you’ll learn the guidelines for picking out the best words to get the “job” done right, but before we dive in, a disclaimer: though you should be constantly adding to your repertoire, you will be served best by the words that naturally fit your voice.
If you recall, in Chapter 4 we discussed the poet’s voice—how your thoughts and emotions are “heard,” or interpreted, by your readers. Ideally, your voice should be heard when anyone is reciting or reading your words, because your writing is a reflection of your habits, personality, beliefs, and so on. Using words that are outside the established realm of “your voice” is sort of like gluing a rubber, squeaky clown-nose onto your face. Once that bright, red nose of an awkward word choice is posted online, everyone will see it, and nothing you do can stop its incessant squeaking. Don’t misunderstand: no one is saying, for example, that a ten-year-old writer is never allowed to use the word contemplating, because it doesn’t fit his or her young voice. A writer is allowed to use any words he or she wants, but doing so is a risk that may result in confusing long-time readers and losing their loyalty. Before you try out completely new and different words, work on coming up with creative ways to reuse and reinvent the words you already know and are comfortable with.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, understand that you’re still an artist, and as such, you are prone to interpreting everything in unique and creative ways, so if being the poet who picks random words to paint metaphorical masterpieces around the chaos is crucial to your voice, then by all means, play in the pandemonium until you can’t tell your pinks from your purples.
On a smaller scale, perhaps you’re just growing tired of using the same word combinations and illustration techniques. At that point, feel free to take out a thesaurus and look up synonyms for the words you use most frequently. WAIT! This is the point where you might feel tempted to replace your typical word choice with one of the synonyms you just found, but if poetry ever had a cardinal sin, you would be committing it. Please understand that a thesaurus is just one half of a complete set of tools: the dictionary is still missing. Before you ever plug a synonym into your poetry, you should know that word backwards and forwards: know all of its forms, its tenses, and each definition it may have. Sometimes a synonym has other, better known meanings, so sticking it in your poem to make it sound less juvenile or more sophisticated can actually have the opposite effect. Remember that patience is the name of the game in poetry. If you’re trying to speed things up (as with a thesaurus), you’re just going to wind up covered from head to toe in obnoxious, squeaking clown noses.
As long as you continue building your vocabulary using these methods, you will encounter far fewer instances where word choice sticks out unfavorably in your poetry. As we’ve discovered, the words we choose have a dramatic effect beyond the page. And it doesn’t end there!
Have you ever heard an interview with Shel Silverstein? Do you even know what Dr. Seuss looks like? No? Not surprising. Start rattling off their poetry, though, and most people could identify the author almost immediately, right? That’s because what kind of person you are doesn’t have much bearing on the fact that, as a poet, you are your words. If you want to become a superstar in the world of poetry, chances are that people will barely know your face at all, let alone what you sound like or wear, or how you spend a lazy, rainy Sunday. They will know your words through and through, however, and that’s why it’s so important to practice your craft.
One of the most useful practices for poets young and old is to routinely write out the words you say as you speak them. Cut out all formalities of grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary, and simply write—word for word—whatever comes out of your mouth. Save the writings, and once you’ve collected a few, compare them. Over time, this practice will help you identify common speech patterns, word redundancies, and all the little quirks that give personality to your voice. It may feel strange at first, but continuing this practice allows you to process your observations faster, more fluidly translate your thoughts into written words, and create smoother and more understandable transitions between one idea and another. This, in turn, benefits your readers, because they can follow along with your writing easier, thereby winning you a larger audience. Sure, it’s going to take a little more time out of your day, but if it’s making your writing better, then it’s time well spent.
However, reaching superstar status requires more practice than just scribbling a three-lined poem or two throughout the week. Eventually, you’re going to look around your writing space and find notebook after notebook filled with thoughts and ideas that are nowhere near completion; half-formed rhymes scratched onto Post-its that litter every wall of your house; and a handful of completed works that you have deemed “worthy enough” to actually make it to a public forum. That’s perfectly okay though, because one, if you’re doing everything we’ve been talking about, that means you have mountains of material to work with and turn into future masterpieces; and two, you’re a poet, and as such, your only “job” is to write whatever feels right to you—not others. Your entire focus should be on enjoying the process and improving your skills in the meantime; if your focus is anywhere else, then you’re missing the point. Who you are and what you have to say with your poetry is infinitely more important than whether or not people like what you’ve said.
Believe it or not, your words are important for reasons outside of the worlds of social media, publishing, and stardom: your words are a part of history. Maybe you’ve heard the adage, “History is written by the winners,” and that’s true to some extent: the information that goes into history books and is taught in school is usually written by the people who won the war or otherwise emerged as the dominant species. Make no mistake, however, that history is rarely remembered for the History 101 textbooks bought at the start of term and sold by the end of it: history is known by the people who lived it and recorded their experiences.
This is, perhaps, the most exciting aspect of poetry. Consider for a moment that Instagram has more than ninety million monthly users. Even if we assume that only one percent of those accounts are strictly creative writing accounts, that’s still 900,000 people across the world who are recording their thoughts, emotions, and experiences in life every month. We’re talking about almost one million individualized firsthand accounts of politics, war, economics, social hierarchy, education, and all the other facets that make life the beautiful, frustrating, incredible, and confusing mess it is.
It’s true, we can’t exactly write poems today from the 20/20 vision of the future: time machines are unfortunately still a thing of fantasy. Did Emily Dickinson spend all of her time writing in isolation because she knew that, after she died, her works would be cherished for the iconic time-period pieces they are? No. Was William Shakespeare tormented by the stress of knowing that his poetry would essentially shape the field of creative writing for not only his generation, but for future generations? Not likely. The fact remains, though, that the works of these two poets characterized and helped to define the history of our human race, even in their highly artistic forms. It stands to reason, then, that you could very well be the next Dickinson or Shakespeare! That doesn’t mean you need to start writing tales of happiness and rainbows, or of woe and sorrow all day long, though. Write whatever you usually write, but write it with the understanding that you have a place in this big world, and even your voice, as insignificant as it may seem, can carry and echo, and it might eventually reach every eye and every ear that roams the land.
Many, many people think of writing as a daunting and downright intimidating task. Asking certain people to translate the thoughts in their head and emotions in their heart into words that other people can read, process, internalize, and respond to, might as well be like asking a duck to grow antennae. If, though, you have that insatiable itch to put pen to paper, then believe it or not, it’s your job to do so.
Words like duty and responsibility don’t carry much meaning anymore, because they are synonymous with all the tasks we don’t really want to do (“Guard the wall: it’s your duty!” “Chores are your responsibility.”). They’re the words we use when we talk about the jobs that make our hearts sink. Doing dishes, washing the laundry, folding the laundry, walking the dog, going to work, running errands on your day off...the list goes on and on, and if you’re living life like the rest of us, you still get those things done (eventually). Maybe you treat writing the same way: you tell yourself, “I have so much to do today! I’ll write if and when I have the time to write,” and that’s understandable! But if words filled with artistic thought and beautiful creativity fill your head, if ink flows through your veins in any quantity, then it’s your duty to write, because frankly, the world doesn’t have enough writers, and it has even fewer poets.
Don’t let the word duty scare you, either! Remember: you are a poet! Nothing is beyond your scope! Just think about how much uglier life would be without poetry and those who write it. Think of all the songs and catchy rhymes that helped you learn different things growing up—all those nursery rhymes are now gone, and with them, your memory of the alphabet, numbers, presidents, states, continents, worlds, and solar systems. Without poets, we wouldn’t have any excuse to splash in puddles, jump over candlesticks, tumble down hills, or dance in the rain. Poetry is abundant in every holiday, religion, and landmark event throughout human history, so without people like you to write, where would we be? Putting words like duty together with poetry isn’t a bad thing. Get creative! Do what you do best, and put a new and positive spin on it!
The words you write matter for plenty of reasons, but ultimately, they matter most because you are a poet. You are a poet who has a voice that is 100 percent unique to you and you alone; you are a poet who is defined by the words you write and the meanings they carry both in and between the lines; you are a poet and, by default, a historian who is uniquely gifted with the ability to translate the observations of your life and time in history into words and ideas that others can understand, and relate to.
Some poets are naturally talented, while others train for years to get where they are, but at the end of the day, if you want to write, you should write; and if you aren’t writing, what’s stopping you? Even if you’re not writing anything you believe to be particularly skillful or life-changing, the fact that you are able to write and do so—putting your thoughts into a form that can be preserved for lifetimes after your last breath—means that those words do, in fact, matter. Now, go write more!