Insight From: Ashlyn Carter
An email newsletter from Ashlyn Carter, the person who makes copywriting fun and seemingly super-easy when it’s not, reminded me of this poem.
And really, when it comes to painting the most exquisite possible word pictures for your readers, what can be more inspiring than this very verse of poetry filled with imagery as vivid as one could possibly imagine even when sitting in one quiet corner of a drab ordinary room with only one window slid half open to glance out into the pouring rain?
Don’t say you saw a bird: you saw a swallow,
“Be Specific” by Mauree Applegate
Or a great horned owl, a hawk, or oriole.
Don’t just tell me that he flew;
That’s what any bird can do;
Say he darted, circled, swooped or lifted in the blue.
Don’t say the sky behind the bird was pretty;
It was watermelon pink streaked through with gold;
Gold bubbled like a fountain
From a pepperminted mountain
And shone like Persian rugs when they are old.
Don’t tell me that the air was sweet with fragrance;
Say it smelled of minted grass and lilac bloom;
Don’t say your heart was swinging;
Name the tune that it was singing,
And how the moonlight’s neon filled the room.
Don’t say the evening creatures all were playing;
Mention tree toad’s twanging, screeching fiddle notes,
Picture cricket’s constant strumming
To the mass mosquitoes humming
While the frogs are singing bass deep in their throats.
Don’t use a word that’s good for all the senses
There’s a word for every feeling one can feel.
If you want your lines to be terrific;
Then do make your words specific,
For words can paint a picture that’s real.
For, as they famously sing, on this blog, words are indeed all I have to take your heart away; or well to at least make your day, even if it’s just for today!