Poetry deserves precision: Hunting for the Right Words

​How do you choose the words that go into your poetry? What are the right words?

​As the poet, you must ultimately be the judge. But the “right words” shouldn’t just be the first ones you toss onto the paper when you feel the sudden rush to write. The critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously noted that while “prose is words in their best order, poetry is the best words in their best order.”

​Certain words rock the ground. They startle, intoxicate, beckon, and electrify. They poke you in the rib cage and entice your tongue. These special words, collected like jewels by wordsmiths, command attention.

​A novelist can get away with less than precise expression from time to time because the momentum of the plot pulls the reader along. But the poet doesn’t have a plot to hide behind. The job of the poet is to create an immediate picture in the mind and an emotion in the heart. Every single word must earn its place.

​Shifting from Simple to Evocative

​Strong word choice doesn’t mean your writing becomes clipped, terse, or dry like a text message. It simply means omitting needless words so your lines become richer.

​Look at how a basic statement can expand into an immersive sensory experience just by pushing our word choice further:

​Example 1: The Sky

• ​The Basic Line: The night was dark and filled with stars.
• ​The Evocative Revision: The night, black as pitch, was peppered with bright pinpoints in varied patterns, sprinkled like sugar candy on a cake.

​Why it works: We moved from a generic night to a specific texture. We added depth using color (black as pitch), shape (varied patterns), and a vivid comparison (sugar candy).

​Example 2: The Beach

• ​The Basic Line: They sat on the sand as the sun set watching the changing colours.
• ​The Evocative Revision: As they sat on the soft, sugary sand, the sinking sun threw golden shafts onto the water, and the sky transformed into a kaleidoscope of purple, pink, and burnished gold.

​Why it works: This doesn’t just use visual imagery; it invokes the tactile, kinesthetic sense of the physical world through the texture of the sand.

Maybe the two examples are too long and would bulk out your poetrybtoonfar and you would strip back the example or add a few more details to the first or do something completely different.

Over to you.

Tell me in the comments.

​Stripping Away the “Poetic Froth”

​Sometimes, we fall into the trap of using words because they sound like poetry, even if they are entirely abstract. Look at this stanza:

​Flinging its bright rays could be the crux

Of feelings that inebriation confounds

Flustered thoughts predestined, profound

Made impatient under the strain of fortitude.

​It sounds fancy, but what does it actually mean? It’s full of abstraction and heavy alliteration, but it’s ultimately froth. It doesn’t inspire the reader because the reader can’t see or feel it.

​Watch what happens when we simplify the vocabulary to find the core meaning:

​Throwing out bright rays could be the key

To feelings that drunkenness blurs.

Rushed thoughts, deep and meant to be,

Grow restless under the weight of strength.

​Now, let’s take it a step further by replacing those lingering abstractions (strength, thoughts) with a physical comparison the reader can actually relate to:

​Holding on to brightness could be the core

To steady feelings that blur like drunkenness.

As my flustered thoughts swirl like water in a plug,

As I grow anxious under the strain of courage.

​What Would I Do With It? (The Final Tweak)

​If I were to take this stanza through one final edit to give it maximum impact, I would lean completely into that brilliant image of the water swirling down the drain, sharpening the verbs to make the emotional exhaustion feel entirely physical:

​Gripping this brightness might be the core

to steadying a mind blurred thick as drink—

while thoughts spiral down like water in a plug,

aching under the heavy skin of courage.

​By swapping “holding on” to “gripping,” the physical effort increases. By changing “strain of courage” to “heavy skin of courage,” we take courage out of the clouds and turn it into a physical weight the speaker is forced to wear.

​Over to You

​Look back at a poem you’ve recently written. Are there lines that are just “poetic froth”—words that sound pretty but don’t anchor the reader to the floor?

​Try finding one abstract word in your draft and replacing it with something as mundane and visceral as water swirling in a plug. Let me know how your draft changes in the comments below!

I am going to try linking other articles and some of my poetry to this article so you can click on the link if you want to see how I tackle or don’t the word choice issue in practice.