odespinner

I admire those who can describe something beautifully with very few words. Looking back at that sentence, I am now trying to condense it. But it’s not just about brevity, there’s so much more to language. The spaces between words, the absence of sound, pregnant pauses, alliteration, onomatopoeia…

R.S. Thomas knew all about that. I have dipped into The Man Who Went Into The West by Byron Rogers, and know already that this was a man who had mastered language. Like great artists, it takes only a few choice strokes to convey something that will provoke thought and create an aesthetic experience.

Ineffable – are there things that cannot be described in words? Some claim that music is better at conveying emotions, but words do this differently. The combination of words and music and movement gives us a great deal to consider, but the pared down simplicity of a haiku is portable. You can carry it about, retain the words, chew on them, come back to them and re-interpret the meaning. Great writing will do that.

Here’s someone else who knew how to paint dramatically with words – Edna St Vincent Millay. Her poem Renascence brilliantly plunges the reader down into the earth and rips the sky apart.