Search the Amazon Books category “how to write,” and 196,538 books turn up. (Think again if you’re slaving over a similar book.) I stick to classic tomes—chock-full of smart, practical advice. Take two:
“A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole, and a carefree superlative has the power to destroy, for the reader, the object of the writer’s enthusiasm.”—E.B White, The Elements of Style
“Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.”—William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Well said. However, a poem can show you how to write. A line-by-line analysis would destroy the beauty of this reading. It’s simple: original comparisons, universality, mood, feeling, art. Creative content can do no less.
Ars Poetica
By Archibald MacLeish
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
* * *
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.
* * *
A poem should be equal to:
Not true
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—
A poem should not mean
But be.
What are your thoughts on producing content that resonates and moves forward verbally and visually? All comments welcome!
Credits:
Wrapped Oranges on a Table Top by William J. McCloskey
A Disaster At Sea by Joseph Mallord William Turner
Categories: Poetry Social Media Smarts The Writing Well
Catherine Hamrick
Soul deep storyteller, poet, copywriter, and editor with a passion for wordplay, gardens, literature, and the South
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