Question

[Steph#2]

What do I do when I no longer have confidence in the things that inspire me to write, when I’m suspicious of the diction I use in my poetry, when all I want to do is to make a bonfire of all my vanities?

Can I go home now?

Steph#3

[Kaem]

I've found reading other people's work and seeing how flawed it is always seems to boost my confidence, so just go read a stack of literary magazines and you'll be feeling awesome in no time. <grin>

[Steph#2]

Christopher Robin is going.
At least I think he is.
Where?
Nobody knows.
But he is going --
I mean he goes
(To rhyme with "knows")
Do we care?
(To rhyme with "where")
We do
Very much.
(I haven't got a rhyme for that "is" in the second line yet. Bother.)
(Now I haven't got a rhyme for bother. Bother.)
Those two bothers will have
to rhyme with each other Buther.
The fact is this is more difficult
than I thought,
I ought --
(Very good indeed)

Eeyore

Thanks for the smile, K, and how does one post a picture of Eeyore; Oh bother!

Steph#3

[Steph#2]

I really should be more specific and ask the question that’s troubling me. I am at a point where writing is either too easy (and crap), or too difficult (and crap), and it’s a horrible and lonely place to be. So, I’ll stop bewailing my sorry predicament and ask the question. You see, I’ve used the word ‘lambent’ in a poem (shock, horror!). It’s not a word in my usual vocabulary and I confess to finding it in the dictionary. I have subsequently discovered its use in other poetry; I like the word. Its use, though, is symptomatic with the problem I have in nearly everything I write: too darn purple, if you know what I mean. It looks as though I used the dreaded thesaurus, but I didn’t and I rarely do. I often browse through a thesaurus and I enjoy simply reading a dictionary to find new words, but not often as I write. I’ll always look up a word I don’t know and one finds plenty of them in poetry. Some people get away with it brilliantly; Larkin, for example, will drop a wonderful word into the middle of what appears deceptively ordinary:

from the cheeky...

Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

to the sublime...

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,

If I try, it comes out crap!

So... unusual words and how do you use them without sounding like you’ve swallowed the dictionary?

Steph#2

[Harry R]

The usual combination of luck and judgement, I expect.

Personally, I'm currently in a state of mind to rebel against the need for overly plain diction in poetry - it's *poetry* for Christ's sake.

Read some nice poetic poetry - Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Hardy perhaps - and it'll put your 'lambent' into context. Plus it's a pleasure in itself.

Afterwards

WHEN the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
"He was a man who used to notice such things"?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
"To him this must have been a familiar sight."

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
"He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"?

[Dunc]

Steph

I’ve used the word ‘lambent’ in a poem (shock, horror!). It’s not a word in my usual vocabulary and I confess to finding it in the dictionary.

I had the same problem when I was first revelling in new words, in those days more with prose than poetry. I'd cleverly slip in an epiphany or stang or lapidation and it'd make a distraction of itself like a mobile phone at a funeral. The trouble, in retrospect, was that the reader would immediately perceive the truth - I was writing the sentence about the word and not about the topic.

I needed to have my word well-digested before I could use it with less selfconscious effect, no matter how selfconscious that effect really was in my composing mind. Regards / Dunc

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

You have to decide if the word will stick out like a sore thumb. Play with it. See if you would use it in different contexts unself-consciously.

Does it fit with the diction and voice of the piece? Is the diction changed because of its presence?

Intentionally deflate the perceived "high" or "obscure" quality of the word.

Use it in a limerick or a dactyl for fun; write a lambent haiku:

There once was a lamb who was bent,
bent over a fence as he went,
went down the green hill
hill sunlit and still,
still lambent in sun's last descent.

Ha! Instant Poetry strikes again!

Now the word doesn't seem so fancy!

Seriously, find a way to get past your discomfort in using it--or don't use it.

BrianIs:)AtYou

[Gabe1]

I would suggest you use those moments of indecision to write something you like.

[David Mascellani]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Steph#2
I really should be more specific and ask the question that’s troubling me. I am at a point where writing is either too easy (and crap), or too difficult (and crap), and it’s a horrible and lonely place to be. So, I’ll stop bewailing my sorry predicament and ask the question. You see, I’ve used the word ‘lambent’ in a poem (shock, horror!). It’s not a word in my usual vocabulary and I confess to finding it in the dictionary. I have subsequently discovered its use in other poetry; I like the word. Its use, though, is symptomatic with the problem I have in nearly everything I write: too darn purple, if you know what I mean. It looks as though I used the dreaded thesaurus, but I didn’t and I rarely do. I often browse through a thesaurus and I enjoy simply reading a dictionary to find new words, but not often as I write. I’ll always look up a word I don’t know and one finds plenty of them in poetry. Some people get away with it brilliantly; Larkin, for example,will drop a wonderful word into the middle of what appears deceptively ordinary:


"Larkin was known to spend months, sometimes years,
on individual poems, taking them through dozens of drafts.
He was also a meticulous keeper of notebooks,
recording the dates on which poems were begun,
abandoned, returned to and completed."
Is the new Philip Larkin poem worthy of publication? (http://www.slate.msn.com/id/2078368/#ContinueArticle)

That's how Larkin "got away" with it, Steph,hard work.
Pure and simple.

Don't be discouraged,Steph, you have talent and if you put in
the hard work for another decade or so, you will be a fine poet.

David