glossolalia
As writers, we all, of course, have our favorite words. Both just in general and the words we use in our poems. Or maybe just the kinds of words. A poem and the entire section of my first collection were titled with the above word, something as world and concept I had discovered and loved. Something that fit very well in a book that was about the intersections of body and language. The things I was striving for in my work of that time. The concept for speaking in tongues being essential to the task of writing itself, particular in creating characters and scenes and writing outside our narrative and voice.
I, in fact, have many favorite words, as all voracious readers and English majors properly would. The title of this blog, for one, it's variation on "dulcet"--sweet or pleasing to the ear. Initially if was a title for a poem project (what ultimately became beautiful, sinister.) When I was starting the etsy shop in 2007, I was aiming not to just sell dgp stuff, but also vintage & jewelry, so I called the shop "DULCET". While this blog had a number of names and titles in the pasr, I decided to rename it with a variation, since here too I wanted a comprehensive sort of blog that encompassed all the things I love (writing and art but also vintage and pretty clothes.)
There are other words that appear and reappear in poems. Boat is one I joke about in the science of impossible objects. Blood, flood, minnow, pencil, kettle, whiskey, ghost. In my MFA workshops, someone once suggested I stop using the word dark, particularly hilarious since the title of the upcoming book has exactly that word blazoned across it's cover. (this same person also would dismissively write things like "Please write another poem." when mine apparently all sounded too similar. yeah, fuck that dude.) Matches, sliver, silver, rabbit, monster.
So often, the words I use are generated by what comes before them in the poem. I have become a big fan of internal rhyme. When I was 21, I wrote terrible poems for my undergrad poetry workshop, but my end rhyme and rhythm was ridiculously on point, and while they were terrible, I feel like it really prepare me for fostering a good sense of rhythm and movement in poems. Even my prose works along similar lines with similar rhythms and attention. I like words that are similar. The delight , in the Potter poems, of
"hooked claw and bric-a-brac.
Slack mouthed with feathers and mud"
While I write in many forms, when I can pull some sound action like that off is when I feel like I am achieving peak poet goals.
Comments