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Page 110

That's right -- it isn't these words
that stave off blankness. It's someone
here to play with you. These words
are like your words. I can make them
nasty, pretty, colorful, cranky --
these symbols of sounds that bodies make.
I know as many tricks as any whore.
I can drape my words with Victorian flounces.
I can trim the excessive use of "the,"
show you, not a leaf, but the vein network
of a tattered rusty maple leaf
(be specific! Show, don't tell!);
I can avoid triteness, keep things moving, prune
those superfluous (spelled with You, Oh You!)
adjectives; I can alliterate, assonate, rhyme, half-rhyme,
make metaphors, metonymies, similes,
synecdoches; I can be cosmic, mythic,
detailed, wry, ironic, direct, rich, sparse, grim,
joyous, despairing and all that jazz;

yet the blankness won't be fooled
unless it dawns on us both that
someone else is here and wants to
play: Words! Oh, Readums, Poety-poo loves your
itsy-bitsy words and I'm going to
EAT THEM UP!

Note: I suggest you look up metonymy and synecdoche, when you're in the area. After you've looked each of them up 5 or 6 times, you may begin to recall which is which. (I think I need to look them up again.)

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