You Can Write Poetry - Jeff Mock [16]
Because Catherine is stubborn, however, she doesn't deserve our admiration. She heard our arguments and exhortations and, despite our being right, refuses to change her mind. To be fair, Catherine may have good reason, too. But we have better reason. So we explain again, quite convincingly—to no use. Still, we may respect her resolve, even though her stubbornness leads her, mistakenly, down the wrong path.
Now the saddest of the three: Frank is pigheaded. He's completely wrong and, what's worse, he knows it. He's utterly unreasonable. He stands with arms crossed, a mad glint in his eyes. We'll never convince him. Our every breath is wasted. The wrong path Catherine went down mistakenly, well, Frank spins sharply on his heel and stomps down that wrong path on purpose.
The key to the subtleties of denotation and connotation can be found in those poet's tools, the dictionary and thesaurus. On my writing desk, they stand side by side, within easy reach. Should I need a word meaning stubborn, I flip through my thesaurus and find the heading Stubbornness. There I find a wealth of synonyms, words that have meanings similar to stubborn, and a selection of antonyms, words that have opposite meanings, such as submission. The thesaurus offers a multitude of ways to suggest what kind of stubbornness it is: twenty-three nouns, seven verbs and verb phrases, and fifty-five adjectives—words for every combination of denotation and connotation. Obstinate or pertinacious? Determined or resolute? Wayward or headstrong? The choice is yours, depending on which word your poem needs.
But here, a red flag of warning: Before deciding on one word or another, always reach for the dictionary to make sure you select the exact word you need. This is an absolute necessity. Check and double-check. Because each word in a poem must be the right word, never leave a selection to chance. The differences in connotations may be slight, but slight differences are the most meaningful. Wayward and headstrong, for instance, are close synonyms for stubborn. Both words have in common the definition willful. But wayward carries a secondary definition that distinguishes it from headstrong: To be wayward is also to be "swayed by caprice; erratic; unpredictable." This secondary definition charges wayward with connotations of being easily influenced, of convictions not held firmly, of opinions that change with the wind. As long as the wind blows strong and steady, wayward knows which way to face, but when the wind turns, wayward turns with it.
Poems rely as much on what they suggest as what they say. It's the power to suggest that allows poems to say much in only a few words. This makes poems concise and gives them depth. It makes poems rich with meaning. A good poem says much in those few words, and it suggests even more. That's the poem we read and read again.
PRACTICE SESSION
1. Use a thesaurus for this exercise. Select ten synonyms of the noun pleasure. Write a draft, ten sentences in length, using one synonym per sentence.
2. Repeat exercise one with synonyms of the noun building, the verb jump, the adjective slow and the verb speed.
3. Write a draft titled "Red" in which you give five definitions of the color, such as Red is the heat of a summer noon. Include one exotic word in the draft.
4. Repeat exercise three with "Blue," "Green" and "Orange."
Concrete Blocks and Fistfuls of Air: Concrete and Abstract Words
Nearly every word in the English language has a synonym meaning almost the same thing. English has an expansive, diverse vocabulary, and the differences between synonyms are often a matter of degree or style. As with wayward and headstrong, their meanings are similar but not exact. Say you wake early on a lovely Saturday morning and decide to stretch your legs. You tie your shoes, step out your door and walk. You amble, saunter, stroll, traipse, stride, strut, swagger, prance, limp, hobble,