An early Christmas gift

[BabyGrace]

Since it's December now...

"CHRISTMAS"
Warm salty air swirls in
From the sea
And settles on a sigh
Wrapped in the dark hour
Around a guiding light
Weary hope toils onward
In peace and prediction
The Savior's night
Burns bright in the palm
Of a calloused hand
Careful plans lay amid scattered dreams
Pieced together and blown
Away like angel dust
Holy symphony
Echoes hallelujah chorus
Resounding to the deeps of the darkest
The world breathes still
Pausing on its journey to the future
Glowing brighter for a moment
In a pure ribbon of joy
Gentle grace descends
The Child has come.

 

[rougerum]

one simple question for you Babygrace: Do you use the word "calloused" in daily vocabulary or any of your normal vocabulary that you use to other people?

~rougerum

[This message has been edited by rougerum (edited 12-01-2000).]

[This message has been edited by rougerum (edited 12-01-2000).]

 

[rougerum]

the point I am trying to bring up here is not to use big words in the name of trying to sound better. If you wouldn't use the word yourself than the word is not needed.

~rougerum

 

[Loafer]

not true. Not true at all, rougerum. Perhpas that rule is true if you are writing dialogue - but not anything else! How is one supposed to call up any sort of imagery or feeling if he/she is not allowed to use the more specific, multi-syllable words that one doesnt use in everyday language???????

Your need to put everything into some sort of rule-based equation baffles me.

 

[rougerum]

Oh come on, it is very true with poetry. You don't need to look up a word that will sound good to make a point. Poetry is showeing yourself and if you start using words that you don't use than that isn't yourself. You can use other words to describe it then. But what I see here overall is people taking a small little line from a poem and putting it up and saying how beautiful taht really is when the line means nothing when the poem should be looked as a whole instead of if it has a few great lines.

~rougerum

 

[rougerum]

Let me go even farther. There was a writer named Gustav Hasford who wrote the book "The Short-Timers" which was made into Full Metal Jacket. This guy was texas born and had no education, his experiences in Vietnam was made into the book "The Short-Timers" and the reason Kubrick made the film from that book is because of how Gustav looked at the war and described it. He described with pure bluntness and wrote it like he was talking. Gustav held nothing back and made no attempt at sounding like the "profesional writer" that he wasn't. When you would speak to Gustav he would talk purely blunt cause that was him and he didn't talk like a writer was suppose to, he talked like himself. But what made him good is that he could get the deatails without having to use the big words he wouldn't know, a good writer doesn't use the big words he doesn't know, a good writer can write what he knows and get around the detailing point to where the detail is decribed and you still know it is the author writing it. Stephen King wrote a book on the art of writing, the main theme of that was "write what you know, doesn't matter what the writing is, just write what you know."

~rougerum

 

[zooropamanda]

a little more tact perhaps?

i dont think babygrace, or anyone else around here, ever esteemed themselves to being great writers. all is going on is a bunch of people writing down some words.

who says that using 'big words' as you put it, means that the author is trying to sound better?
perhaps that was just a word that popped into the writer's head and that is why s/he used it.
most of the time i write things and i don't even know what they mean when i first write them. and its those times, when i don't really think about trying to get a message across or dont think about what it is im trying to say, but just to write, that some good stuff appears.

I dont see what is wrong with using such a word as the one you pointed out.
do you think artists paint only what they see in their lives? only what is true to them?
I don't think so.
I dont think Bono would use many of the words he uses in his song s in every day conversation.
In fact, maybe Im wrong Thats right, I throw 'intransigence' into the convo all the time. Stupid me.

I also don't agree the poetry is about showing yourself. Sure many poems that we write come from our own experiences, but they are also drawn from things that have nothing to do with our lives also.

How could I write a poem about someone else with completely different experiences to mine, if I used my own words and phrasing to describe it?
You have to adapt and change to suit the subject, and if that means using a word like 'calloused' so be it.

You are right in what you say about writing out of what you know, I one hundred percent agree. A good writer does write as themselves and not what the world perceives a good writer to be.
However, you have no idea why the word was used in this particular piece, so I don't think you have the right to single it out.

You accuse people here of not being critical enough of poems because they are singling out lines in poems before they judge them as a whole piece,yet you have done exactly the same thing by singling out this one word to disregard it.

 

[rougerum]

that is totally ridiculous, I asked her is she used that word in normal talking, I did not judge the poem at all from just that. I just pointed something out to her, that is it. I never write what I fully think of a poem but other people here do. What I meant in that "me" is really what you know. Sorry if it seemed otherwise but that is what I meant. The good writers don't need to use the big words they don't know to prove a point, they are good enough to use words they know to prove that point. So many countless writers try to use big words to sound intelligent and smart and if you have confidence in what you say you can get away with murder really cause you are making it sound like you know it but you don't. How do you know if there isn't someone here that doesn't want to be great writers, how do you possibly know that? But if you know a big word that sounds good then fucking use it cause that will be by you. But you can not deny people trying to use words they have no idea on just to sound better, that happens all the time, that is what I hate. If BabyGrace knew that word and it popped into her head from some past experience more power to her, I just hate the phonies trying to sound good.

~rougerum

 

[BabyGrace]

i don't know, i haven't talked about hands lately

why, does it bother you? it doesn't sound that weird to me... if you're asking "do i talk like i write poetry?" then not quite

actually i'm very bad at getting my point across and in general my english is crappy...
i have to sit down and think about it if i want to appear literate

------------------
You're taking steps that make you feel dizzy
Then you get to like the way it feels...

 

[BabyGrace]

hey, rougerum, no need to get so worked up over it...i really don't think calloused is that strange a word

and yeah i use it...just not very often. i wouldn't use it to describe anything other than hands, feet, and maybe a soul...those are the only things that i can think of where i might have used it and obviously not very often ...when do you ever talk about someone having a calloused soul???

when i write poetry, it's just emotion... something at the moment that i find beautiful, or maybe something that is breaking my heart, if you know what i mean. i don't sit there and try to sound good and i am certainly not a writer

when i feel something i just sometimes have words that spring into my head and i put 'em down and share 'em with you guys...if it bothers you, i'll stop

the only poem i posted here where i might have "tried to sound good" is the Fragile Mastery one...and, duh, i wrote that for school..ya have to sound good there

personally i find that poem stupid, not sure why i posted it...

------------------
You're taking steps that make you feel dizzy
Then you get to like the way it feels...