A-to-Z Reveal (2017): Poetry of Words

I like dictionaries. Did you ever look for dirty words in a dictionary? I am not sure kids still do that. Everything is on line. I still use some of those words; but not today, not in my blog. At least, not those words. I plan to find new (to me) words for this challenge. You may find them interesting. IĀ need one per day. Toss some my way, if ya be so inclined.

Words are the bits, pieces, and colors writers use to craft the art. When we tell it as the writer, we use words. We may enhance words with pictures or sounds, but we write with words.

During April, I want to immerse myself in poetry. I want to read more poetry, learn about writing poems, and discover my inner (wannabe) poet. I want to do that by writing them ā€“ to piffle out one poem each day for the month. Iā€™m not (yet) a poet. Iā€™ve never finished a poem that I considered ready for others to read or hear.

To that end, and in typical self-abusive fashion, Iā€™ll write as many poems in April as Iā€™m able. I will then post them for all to see. My goal is one a day for the month. To further ensure my personal embarrassment and pain, I am asking you for feedback ā€“ ā€œDonā€™t quit your day job.ā€ This may backfire, but I want (by example) to encourage others to put their work out there, to take the risk, to allow us to share in their efforts.

For each letter of the alphabet, Iā€™ll attempt to use a word within a poem, or make it the subject of a poem, or I will somehow engage the word with the poem. Iā€™ll create a piece that involves my chosen word (maybe more than one), and then proceed in alphabetical order, beginning on April 1st (Oh dear me, the foolā€™s day).

I will post every day.Ā I plan to piggyback this A-to-Z challenge with the National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo) challenge. NaPo requires posting all 30 days. I welcome your suggestions. For both challenges, a poem will be posted to my blog and linked to the challenges.

I tend to have logophilia, an emotional attachment to words. My vocabulary is no larger than average, but it should be. My spelling should also be better.Ā Iā€™m not much of an orthographer, but some of my readers are correctors of spelling and grammar, especially mine. Feel free to pile on with them to highlight my blunders so that we learn (my poetic license is up to date).

I want to use this opportunity to learn more about poetry. Will you help me? If you provide feedback comments, other readers see your comments, and thereby grow poetically. Iā€™m willing to hang it out there. You can tell me about it, and we can all learn from the experience — if you share your poetic wisdom with us in the blogosphere.

ā€œA poem should not mean/But be.ā€ ~ Archibald MacLeish

33 thoughts on “A-to-Z Reveal (2017): Poetry of Words”

  2. Our senior English teacher was old-school; we did a lot of dictionary work in her class, and between that and the thesaurus I was hooked for life. She once said, everyone should have, at least once in their travels, a full -sized unabridged dictionary.
    I got mine about twenty five years ago, and have never regretted it.

    Bring on the poems, sir. (sharpening my pencil).

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  3. I have a hard copy of Webster’s “Unabridged” Dictionary, and it’s a massive volume. But the “unabridged” is a lie, because it doesn’t include any of the commonly used “dirty words”. Yet there’s nothing on the book to indicate that it’s a censored version. Thank goodness for Urban Dictionary.

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      3. I’m not home until late tonight, so I can’t check the hard copy until then. But there is a town in California named Zzyzx – hard to beat that as a Z word!

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      5. OK, I’ve pulled out my book, and I have for you:

        Zymurgy: The chemistry of fermentation, as applied to winemaking or brewing.

        Zobo: A zebu/yak hybrid.

        Zeugma: A figure of speech, in which an adjective is applied to two or more words, with only one if which it seems logically connected. (e.g. “The room was not light, but his fingers were.”)

        Hope something there is useful.

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  4. The letter ‘Z’ is a tough one. The word Zealot comes to mind….or if you wanna bring your A to Z challenge full circle you could write a poem about the Zombie Apocalypse … just sayin šŸ™‚

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  5. Zaftig is a Yiddish word that means “juicy.” That’s got all kinds of potential. One of my favorite words has always been juxtapose, but it doesn’t lend itself to poetry very well. Of course, poetry is so daunting for me that no words lend themselves very well.

    My newest favorite word I learned recently: defenestration. Makes me dance a little! (Def: throwing someone or something out of a window.) I know, I know, sounds a little gory, but it’s one of those words that goes with its own definition so nicely.

    Good luck to you. Great theme!

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    1. Thanks, John. I am building quite a list. Fortunately, I will choose some. Others may be subject to defenestration. The informal definition is more palatable: the action of dismissing someone from a position of power or authority.

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  8. My aunt was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse (every person has one in their past, I’m sure). She had a ‘mountain kid’ in her class and she was reading his scary tale one day in Creative Writing. He used the word, “pritinneer” several times but she didn’t catch on until the last line. “That ghost pritinneer made me pee my pants!”

    (I know this isn’t exactly what you asked for, but that’s what popped into my pea brain when I read this)

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  9. Poetry is so personal. I think it’s awesome you’ll be doing the poetry in A-Z for April šŸ™‚ I never do a theme, but I enjoy those of others.

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  12. to quote: “do not try. just do.”

    if you want a really good spur to getting the wheels turning, pick ten words at random (or have someone pick them for you), but play fair, make sure they are ‘usable’ words–toilet and buttercup may be interesting to work into a poem, but we are writing poetry here–and give yourself a limited amount of time to focus on those words and write a poem that include all of them.

    There was poetry message board online that did that regularly, and it was amazing what people could do in that ten minutes, with the same ten words.

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    1. Thanks, Judy (Yoda). I hope there is more to this than me writing. I do that all the time. This could also be about learning to write poetry, and meeting challenges. And, yes there is try, especially for those of us who are not Jedi, and may venture to the dark side.

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  13. I love words and linguistics. I especially love learning the history behind words and why they carry the meanings and associations that they do. I hope to stop back and read some of your poetry during the month.

    Good luck with the challenge.

    Cait @ Click’s Clan

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