What's your least favorite word?

[Tzara]

EVERYONE starts out with cliches. i don't think there's anything wrong with a new writer using them, as long as they slowly weed them out as they start figuring the whole thing out.

language is an infinitely complex thing.

some people learn, some don't. some try and succeed, some try and fail. some refuse to try at all . . . it's like anything.

Everybody uses clichés, not just new writers. Just what is cliché? It's not as though there is a hard and fast (<-- see, right there) list of them. What cliché means is that the phrase sounds tired to the reader. We all have different experience, so we probably all have a different sense of what we consider to be cliché.

The problem for a writer, I think, is that cliché phrases and words are kind of like prefabricated building materials. You're looking to describe something and this handy-dandy ready-made phrase pops into your head that says what you want to say. You slap that baby into the poem and off you go onto the next stanza.

It's hard enough for a more experienced writer to see that they're doing this, let alone a newer writer who is just trying to express themselves.

 

[WickedEve]

are you my soulmate?

Yeah, that word is kind of cliche and creepy.

 

[TheRainMan]

Everybody uses clichés, not just new writers. Just what is cliché? It's not as though there is a hard and fast (<-- see, right there) list of them. What cliché means is that the phrase sounds tired to the reader. We all have different experience, so we probably all have a different sense of what we consider to be cliché.

The problem for a writer, I think, is that cliché phrases and words are kind of like prefabricated building materials. You're looking to describe something and this handy-dandy ready-made phrase pops into your head that says what you want to say. You slap that baby into the poem and off you go onto the next stanza.

It's hard enough for a more experienced writer to see that they're doing this, let alone a newer writer who is just trying to express themselves.

nobody said it was easy,

including you, i see.

it ain't.

(edited to add) . . . and that's what makes it worthwhile.

 

[TheRainMan]

Yeah, that word is kind of cliche and creepy.

lol...

i can make it work.

. . . the word, i mean. the word.

 

[WickedEve]

We all have different experience, so we probably all have a different sense of what we consider to be cliché.

I agree. Maybe someone has heard it a million times but the poet hasn't.

 

[Tzara]

are you my soulmate?

The pavement is my shoe's solemate.

 

[Angeline]

None of the words you've mentioned bother me necessarily though I know they can be overused, misused. I agree with ee that "poem" is ugh (not that I haven't used it lol). I also dislike "thing." Any generic word in a poem (unless that's the point of a poem) bugs me. I don't like imprecision in poetry, taking the easy way out usually results in mediocrity.

 

[WickedEve]

None of the words you've mentioned bother me necessarily though I know they can be overused, misused. I agree with ee that "poem" is ugh (not that I haven't used it lol). I also dislike "thing." Any generic word in a poem (unless that's the point of a poem) bugs me. I don't like imprecision in poetry, taking the easy way out usually results in mediocrity.

I've used poem and thing. I guess I should just go for it and write Attack of the Poem Thing. lol

 

[Angeline]

I've used poem and thing. I guess I should just go for it and write Attack of the Poem Thing. lol

Don't start. It can only lead to disco zombies.

 

[TheRainMan]

. . . I also dislike "thing." . . .

i like that word a lot.

it's its very vagueness, for me, that can make it so effective.

like any word, you have to know how to use it.

i know you know how to use it, effectively.

that's because you're good.

 

[Angeline]

i like that word a lot.

it's its very vagueness, for me, that can make it so effective.

like any word, you have to know how to use it.

i know you know how to use it, effectively.

that's because you're good.

As are you, my dear.

But I know what you mean. I hate to rule out any word because it's on somebody's cliche list. It's not the word, but how it's used. And you know that most people use words like "thing" because they haven't thought through what they want to say. Fuzzy thinking usually lies behind imprecise writing. And we all can be guilty of it, which is why I have never understood the argument "I don't need to edit."

 

[The_Fool]

As are you, my dear.

But I know what you mean. I hate to rule out any word because it's on somebody's cliche list. It's not the word, but how it's used. And you know that most people use words like "thing" because they haven't thought through what they want to say. Fuzzy thinking usually lies behind imprecise writing. And we all can be guilty of it, which is why I have never understood the argument "I don't need to edit."

I don't need to edit if I never write.....

 

[TheRainMan]

I don't need to edit if I never write.....

you are consistently funny, Fool.

and i don't think i've ever seen you try to inject that wonderful wit in a big way into your poetry . . . i'm probably wrong, and have just not read enough of yours.

that line above, for instance, has all kinds of possibilities to build around.

. . . just thinkin' out loud.

 

[CeriseNoire]

Solitude

In the lone indigo night,
his soul is lost. A gossamer breeze

dries obsidian tears that run,
trailing like a fluffy ooze,
down his mournful, fiery cheek.

And now here is the moon.
How he feels it!

Oh goodness, "fluffy ooze" just brings up the worst mental image. I think I'll be dreaming about fluffy ooze tonight.

 

[BooMerengue]

Any word that's spelled wrong, or who's definition is garbled, and any words used just to show off a 'superior' vocabulary. I don't want to read w/ a dictionary.

 

[unapologetic]

Cunt. Not because of politics or propriety, it's just the sonority of it that bothers me. Stuff, although that's a professional by-product, and fuck when used as a substitute for stuff or thing because the person can't be bothered to think of a word.

Me too! Me too! I love those words in regular conversation, but they always feel like speed bumps in poetry. I actually work for a man (part-time job) who hates the word cunt but admires me for being able to say it.

 

[unapologetic]

I'm not too fond of butterfly

I'm obsessed with writing poems about butterflies recently. I went to a butterfly conservatory and "got the bug," as it were. Of course, the poems are tending to be about the insects as opposed to the symbolism of the flutterbies, but that has been creeping into my writing as well. Oh well... hopefully I'm not too much of a noob and can do something original with it.

 

[WickedEve]

"I want your cunt, baby." He could
want candles--
wickless--
want our neighbors, skewered

on pine twigs.
I'm pining for this man
who wants
my
cunt,
not the hole

in the house
over our fence. She's spread
between yellow curtains,
dimly alluring.

 

[WickedEve]

I'm obsessed with writing poems about butterflies recently. I went to a butterfly conservatory and "got the bug," as it were. Of course, the poems are tending to be about the insects as opposed to the symbolism of the flutterbies, but that has been creeping into my writing as well. Oh well... hopefully I'm not too much of a noob and can do something original with it.

I've written poems about butterflies--monarchs. I hate to see the word butterfly pop up in a non-butterfly poem. "She fluttered like a butterfly" or some silliness like that.

 

[Tzara]

I've written poems about butterflies--monarchs. I hate to see the word butterfly pop up in a non-butterfly poem. "She fluttered like a butterfly" or some silliness like that.

Oh, hell. I even use the word "flutters."

I feel so worthless now.

 

[WickedEve]

Oh, hell. I even use the word "flutters."

I feel so worthless now.

It's okay. Really. I still admire you,

a little.

 

[TheRainMan]

here's an artist who knows how to take a cliche and bust it wide open, into something profound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sILtO6LAEq8

 

[Tzara]

"I want your cunt, baby." He could
want candles--
wickless--
want our neighbors, skewered

on pine twigs.
I'm pining for this man
who wants
my
cunt,
not the hole

in the house
over our fence. She's spread
between yellow curtains,
dimly alluring.

Xenoglossia

I part the yellow curtains.
Her indigo jeans still hang
on the clothesline, legs spread

as I remember her, last evening.
We listened to Mozart
and drank red wine. Then

later, sprawled over the bed,
I played with her, with that part
of her I can't say. Can't name.

Speech is not everything.
Confined to silence, yet could I
speak my piece in tongues.

 

[champagne1982]

Xenoglossia

I part the yellow curtains.
Her indigo jeans still hang
on the clothesline, legs spread

as I remember her, last evening.
We listened to Mozart
and drank red wine. Then

later, sprawled over the bed,
I played with her, with that part
of her I can't say. Can't name.

Speech is not everything.
Confined to silence, yet could I
speak my piece in tongues.

Make peace behind
those gossamer curtains
where hides the font.
Genuflect and then stretch,
prostrate at the altar,
to worship the gifts
of wine and fruit, generosity
of the Goddess.


I dislike what Boo dislikes. If you can't take the time to make certain you're word isn't misplaced malaprop or misspelled snobbery, then how am I supposed to give credence to your poetry at all?

ETA: formatting around my poor proof reading

 

[pellso27]

drainage

...........