Erica Jean
@HeyItsEricaĀ Ā·Ā 2:17
Should I Avoid Using " BIG" Words in Poetry? One Commenter Said For Me To Leave It Outš¤š
Hey, this is Erica with Bum Bun's book Pick, and I have a question for you today. So I posted one of my visual poetry on TikTok the other day and someone posted a comment under it that said there's no need to use big words to make poetry or to make great poetry. And this was the one negative comment out of the hundreds of hearts that I've gotten. So it didn't really bug me
Kwa NateKo
@kwaĀ Ā·Ā 2:57
And with poetry, though, or any prose, if a certain word is used for a specific kind of impact and you can't find a better word to do that, I think use that. And if a quote unquote fancy word feels and sounds a certain way and it conveys the same thing, that maybe a whole entire that you would need to write a whole half a sentence to get the same point across, then, yeah, use that word
Kwa NateKo
@kwaĀ Ā·Ā 1:36
And I guess as an example, right, in both poetry and just, I don't know, essays or regular short stories, we're often taught not to use run on sentences. Now, some things, like the New Yorker may be different. They love that Oxford comma, and they have these long, flowery sentences sometimes, but generally speaking, we're taught to avoid them, right?
Kwa NateKo
@kwaĀ Ā·Ā 0:57
Or another example may come to mind. You may use like you may have a written piece that uses a bunch of what are the word to use fancy words as a way to show how could you say the narrator of a poem like the the narrator or character is pomp is full of themselves. Right. Or, I don't know, has general people around them or is trying to kind of show off. So they use a bunch of big fancy words all the time
And I think it also depends on the topic and the goal. And I don't know if I said this already or not, but I think I read somewhere that if we're writing to reach everyone, and I think of this when I'm speaking, then essentially we're diluting ourselves to such an extent that there is no audience, it's everyone. It loses its meaning, its significance, et cetera
Erica Jean
@HeyItsEricaĀ Ā·Ā 1:44
It's. Hey, Christina, thank you so much. I totally, totally agree with everything you literally said, because on one hand, much of my writing, like I said, over 98 or 99% of my writing is very simplistic. I don't use any complex wording and things like that. But for this particular poem, which I will recite on Swell, possibly today, so that all of you can have some sort of context
Erica Jean
@HeyItsEricaĀ Ā·Ā 1:40
Hey Kwa or Quay. Sorry, I hope I didn't botch your name, but thank you so, so much for your responses. I listened to all of them and yeah, I do see that where we don't want to use complex wording all the time to get something across. And generally poetry, in poetry, less is more. So my TikTok is use of haiku, so I definitely practice less is more all the time
Katharine Coles
@katharine.colesĀ Ā·Ā 2:54
Hi, Erica. This is such a great question and it's one that I deal with with my college students all the time. And the first thing I want to say is that in poetry, as in most of the arts, every rule is there to be upended and to be broken in the right situation. But the question is how do we figure out what that situation is?
Erica Jean
@HeyItsEricaĀ Ā·Ā 0:48
I'm actually one of those people that I love discovering new words or uncovering words that I don't know. It's always like a little gift to me. And so, once again, thank you for that example. And thank you for your response
Becky Butler
@bc75Ā Ā·Ā 3:28
Hi, Erica. Becky here from visions. Expression. And, you know, I write a lot of poetry and share a lot of poetry, and one of the things that I had to decide is what level type of language should I use to get across the sentiment that is within me?
Erica Jean
@HeyItsEricaĀ Ā·Ā 1:42
Hey, Becky. Thank you so much for your response. As a fellow poet, I definitely love hearing your words. And just now, I enjoyed hearing your words of encouragement about this. And like you said, we're walking around basically with computers in our hands, so if we don't know something, we can look it up. And just like you, I'm a person of learning, just constantly learning until my last breath. I love learning what a big word is because I unwrap
Camille Johnson
@CAM213.Ā Ā·Ā 2:13
Hi, Erica. So I was listening to your points about your verbiage that you're using in your poetry. And I just want to say that, well, for one, I do not write poetry, but if I were and I'm just thinking about when we were in high school and like middle school, like writing, you know, poems and haiku's and things, each poem that you write or anything that you write is for a specific audience
Erica Jean
@HeyItsEricaĀ Ā·Ā 1:19
But for some reason, I really wanted to get you all's opinion on this one, because I'm the type of person, I'm going to continue to write what I want to write, and I want to encourage other writers that they should write whatever they want to write as well. Like you said, this one commenter is definitely not going to get me down. It just goes to show that we have so much access to these small computers in our hands and we don't use them
SOUL MIND
@BEAUTIFULSOULMIĀ Ā·Ā 1:32
You. So I am a fan of you using big words. I don't think that just because you use big words you can't reach the masses. I'm sure every word that you're stating in your poem or short story is not a big word. If it's a few of them, then that would invoke curiosity for me to find out. Well, what does she exactly mean by that? By that word? Love words
Erica Jean
@HeyItsEricaĀ Ā·Ā 1:13
You. Hey, soul Mind, thank you so much for responding. Thank you for your encouragement, your kind words. And you're right, the masses need to learn these words too. Because as I write, I am learning. These are not words that are stuck in me. These are words that are pulled from creativity and from, you know, just looking around. You know, I don't use the word dichotomy in my everyday language, but it seemed perfect when describing the city life