Curse of the Verbose

[Angeline]

I'm having a dumb day. This was supposed to be a response to Eve's thread about cutting out the fat! Obviously I clicked the wrong button! If you're here, and have a response please add it to eve's thread. Thanks!


Boy is this a topic I can sink my teeth into! Got a few hours? No, thought not. Being the long-winded girl I am and loving words as I do, my poems can get as unwieldy as--um--this sentence? One of my mentors has suggested that I take some of my longer rambly prosey poems (and if you've read my stuff, you know what I mean) and rewrite them as quatrains. I have and it's a great exercise for cutting out fat.

This same mentor said something about my writing that relates to this and really hit home for me. He compared writing a poem to baking a cake. Said the best cakes are simple. Why bother to decorate a beautiful simple cake. I like that metaphor. I'm trying to bake simple delicious cakes!

I also think we should try to help each other by pointing out extraneous words when we critique each other's poems here. I often get so caught up in loving individual words that I forget the power of simple stark language.

Oh and Eve? You do realize that at some point you will no longer be able to outdo yourself on the avatars!

 

[WickedEve]

Thread Thief!!!

I'm glad I'm not the only one that needs to shed a few extra words! Some of my poems need to go on a diet. lol

About the AVs: I can so! I have about hundred more! All totally cool!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Rambling verse and its occasional merits.

angeline,

although it is said that the best poems are simple, i, e. Randall Jarrell's "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," many exciting pieces are quite verbose. Ever read Longfellow?

Tequila Sunrise

 

[WickedEve]

Writers, poetry and prose, need to learn when and what to cut. I recently had a poem critiqued, and when revising it I cut too much, thinking it would improve the piece. Editing your own work is an art form.

 

[Rybka]

Poems are like babies. At some time you just have to let go. Editors are like day care. It is hard to know whom you can trust.

Regards, Rybka