Poetry is Written in Words: Thirty-Five

Claudia McGill 2 Comments

Poems from my Merriam-Webster Word of the Day project. For more information, look here.

lacuna : a blank space or a missing part : GAP

A new page
A string of dashes
Do you move
mark to mark?
Lacuna to lacuna?
Which route should you choose?

shadorma 512 : 3/18/23

divest : RID, FREE

It’s our book.
Let’s divest ourselves
of cruel gray
sentences.
Let’s flip pages.Tear out pain.
Cling on tight to love.

shadorma 502 : 2/15/23

espouse : to take up and support as a cause : become attached to

Espouse the power
of pencils to take down thoughts.
Underline your words
on the page. They are written.
They speak for you. They are real.

tanka 375 : 12/29/22

onomatopoeia : the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss)

Here’s my candidate
onomatopoeia for
the sound of searching
as dictionary pages
are thumbed flipped and turned: siffle

tanka 359 : 11/27/22

Note: I thought I created the word siffle to fit the sound, but the dictionary has already thought of it. Siffle is defined by Merriam-Webster as : to blow or speak with a sibilant sound : WHISTLE, HISS. I think it fits.

Attributions:

“Lacuna.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lacuna. Accessed 18 Mar. 2023.

“Divest.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/divest. Accessed 15 Feb. 2023.

“Espouse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/espouse. Accessed 29 Dec. 2022.

“Onomatopoeia.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/onomatopoeia. Accessed 27 Nov. 2022.

2 thoughts on “Poetry is Written in Words: Thirty-Five”

    • Thank you. I am a person who thinks by doing, and writing with a pen or pencil helps me organize myself and my thinking better. Lists, poems, anything, a pencil is the first thing I learned to write with and it still feels so good in my hand.

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