Week of first drafts - Friday - verbing weirds language
Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 9:55 pm
Stolen, today, from Wild poetry forum:
“A NOUN’S A THING; A VERB’S THE THING IT DOES
“Verbs are the catalyst in a poem. In fact, verbs are probably the most important part of speech in poetry. A non-poet might think adjectives would be of primary importance because they are descriptive. And, while a prudent use of adjectives can be helpful, adjectives can also slow things down. They’re often static. On the other hand, you can use verbs to catalyze internal or exterior events, to add vital energy to the language. The strong visual verb compels the poem forward. That’s why it’s best to avoid verbs such as move when hustle or shoot or limp work better. These words add imagistic zing to the poem, while verbs such as move or exist offer very little sensory vigor.
Yusef Komunyakaa is famous for his frank poems about war veterans. Here he employs strong visual verbs to render the interior life:
To Have Danced with Death
by Yusef Komunyakka
The black sergeant first class
who stalled us on the ramp
didn’t kiss the ground either.
When two hearses sheened up to the plane
& government silver-gray coffins
rolled out on silent chrome coasters,
did he feel better? The empty left leg
of his trousers shivered as another hearse
with shiny hubcaps inched from behind a building . . .
his three rows of ribbons rainbowed
over the forest of faces through
plate glass. Afternoon sunlight
made surgical knives out of chrome
& brass. He half smiled when
the double doors opened for him
like a wordless mouth taking back promises.
The room of blue eyes averted his.
He stood there, searching
his pockets for something:
maybe a woman’s name & number
worn thin as a Chinese fortune.
I wanted him to walk ahead,
to disappear through glass,
to be consumed by music
that might move him like Sandman Sims,
but he merely rocked on his good leg
like a bleak & soundless bell.
Consider some of the verbs in the poem: stalled, sheened, shivered, rainbowed, half smiled, consumed, and rocked. All of these invest the poem with a kind of traumatic psychological energy that renders the narrator and the wounded sergeant’s ambivalence about the military rituals they were afforded upon returning from the Vietnam War. The primary action of Komunyakaa’s poem is psychological, and these verbs demonstrate how dynamic the inner realm really is. They contribute directly to the visceral reaction we have when reading the poem. If stalled were “stopped,” if sheened were “drove,” and if rainbowed were “waved,” the poem wouldn’t induce such a strong gut-level reaction.
To make this exercise just a bit more challenging, write a free verse poem in which the following four words, normally thought of as nouns, are used somewhere in the piece as verbs:
thundercloud
letter
hawk
bookcase
Remember, you must use the words as verbs. It is not enough to have them simply appear in the poem. For instance, using “afternoon” as an example:
“She lazed by the pool all afternoon.” (incorrect)
“She afternooned by the pool; morning regrets from another lifetime.” (correct)
Pay attention to the other verbs you use in the poem as well. Select them carefully to underscore your subject and theme, and try to ensure they add imagistic zest to your poem, though you needn’t go overboard. The subject of the poem may be anything you wish. .
“~ Text and exercise from “The Mind’s Eye: A Guide to Writing Poetry” by Kevin Clark
“A NOUN’S A THING; A VERB’S THE THING IT DOES
“Verbs are the catalyst in a poem. In fact, verbs are probably the most important part of speech in poetry. A non-poet might think adjectives would be of primary importance because they are descriptive. And, while a prudent use of adjectives can be helpful, adjectives can also slow things down. They’re often static. On the other hand, you can use verbs to catalyze internal or exterior events, to add vital energy to the language. The strong visual verb compels the poem forward. That’s why it’s best to avoid verbs such as move when hustle or shoot or limp work better. These words add imagistic zing to the poem, while verbs such as move or exist offer very little sensory vigor.
Yusef Komunyakaa is famous for his frank poems about war veterans. Here he employs strong visual verbs to render the interior life:
To Have Danced with Death
by Yusef Komunyakka
The black sergeant first class
who stalled us on the ramp
didn’t kiss the ground either.
When two hearses sheened up to the plane
& government silver-gray coffins
rolled out on silent chrome coasters,
did he feel better? The empty left leg
of his trousers shivered as another hearse
with shiny hubcaps inched from behind a building . . .
his three rows of ribbons rainbowed
over the forest of faces through
plate glass. Afternoon sunlight
made surgical knives out of chrome
& brass. He half smiled when
the double doors opened for him
like a wordless mouth taking back promises.
The room of blue eyes averted his.
He stood there, searching
his pockets for something:
maybe a woman’s name & number
worn thin as a Chinese fortune.
I wanted him to walk ahead,
to disappear through glass,
to be consumed by music
that might move him like Sandman Sims,
but he merely rocked on his good leg
like a bleak & soundless bell.
Consider some of the verbs in the poem: stalled, sheened, shivered, rainbowed, half smiled, consumed, and rocked. All of these invest the poem with a kind of traumatic psychological energy that renders the narrator and the wounded sergeant’s ambivalence about the military rituals they were afforded upon returning from the Vietnam War. The primary action of Komunyakaa’s poem is psychological, and these verbs demonstrate how dynamic the inner realm really is. They contribute directly to the visceral reaction we have when reading the poem. If stalled were “stopped,” if sheened were “drove,” and if rainbowed were “waved,” the poem wouldn’t induce such a strong gut-level reaction.
To make this exercise just a bit more challenging, write a free verse poem in which the following four words, normally thought of as nouns, are used somewhere in the piece as verbs:
thundercloud
letter
hawk
bookcase
Remember, you must use the words as verbs. It is not enough to have them simply appear in the poem. For instance, using “afternoon” as an example:
“She lazed by the pool all afternoon.” (incorrect)
“She afternooned by the pool; morning regrets from another lifetime.” (correct)
Pay attention to the other verbs you use in the poem as well. Select them carefully to underscore your subject and theme, and try to ensure they add imagistic zest to your poem, though you needn’t go overboard. The subject of the poem may be anything you wish. .
“~ Text and exercise from “The Mind’s Eye: A Guide to Writing Poetry” by Kevin Clark
