It’s one of my favorite times of the year. I’m preparing to teach a module on lyric poetry for my college freshmen this week. We’ve just come out of reading two massive epic poems (the whole of Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost), so the turn to shorter poetry is very welcome.
But as a writer, I always look at the study of lyric as the perfect opportunity to work on two vital skills: economy of expression and word choice.
Economy
When I hear the word “economy” I think of my grandmothers. They were two beautiful souls who knew how to make a little go farther than you’d think possible. I think this ability is a tremendous gift, and it reveals several essential qualities:
- You understand what’s really important.
- You don’t need abundance to deliver a powerful, meaningful emotional experience.
If you think about economy like this, it’s clear, I think, how applicable it is to writing.
To demonstrate the power of economy at work, let’s take a look at one of my absolute favorite Imagist poems by Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro”:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:Petals on a wet, black bough.
Word Choice
Let’s look at our poem again, but this time we’ll look not at the overall effect, but at the specific words.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:Petals on a wet, black bough.
Apparition
One meaning of this word is “ghost”, so why didn’t Pound opt for the simpler word here? It would change the meaning of the poem to use “ghost” because these faces aren’t necessarily the images of the dead; they could just be startling. “Apparition” is the better word because it’s more precise and allows multiple meanings to exist simultaneously.
Faces in the Crowd
Pound here directs our focus: we’re not looking at “people in the crowd” — we’re looking at faces. Faces reveal personality, individuality, emotion. Combined with the word “apparition”, we know that there is something strange or startling to the narrator about them, but we’re not sure what it is (yet).
This could also be the use of a poetic device known as metonymy, which means “part for the whole.” When you’re looking at crafting descriptions, try to see if you can capture the whole picture by focusing in on a single part. Not only does it direct the camera without directing the camera, but it also shows your capacity for writing visually.
Petals
Metonymy again. Pound doesn’t say “flowers” — he says “petals”. Why? Petals make up the “face” of the flower, and they’re the most delicate part. If you’ve ever seen petals in the rain, they can look one of two ways: shriveled and battered, or strong and resilient.
Can we see how we’ve just opened up a whole set of interpretive options for what’s startling about these faces?
Wet, black bough
The contrast to the petals on every level is clear here: texture, color, size, shape.
There’s even contrast within this phrase itself. “Wet” and “black” are both strong words with hard sounds. “Bough” (as opposed to the synonym “branch”) is soft. This is part of the music of putting words together. We should be intentional about this. Listen for it, and play with it.
Do Try This At Home
The key to bold, beautiful, and brilliant writing is intention.
Words shouldn’t stay on the page just because they came out like that. As you make passes through your work, look for opportunities to practice this kind of imagistic writing. Compress your descriptions into the tightest possible packets. Squeeze the life out of every word.
I promise you, this is one of the surest paths to crafting stories that stay with your reader.
To your success,
Shannon
