I asked my poetic friend what was the reason for that decision. He said, “Because there are so many other words you can use.”

True. So true. Who could argue?

While pondering this solid truth I decided to come up with other overused words in poetry. Here’s my list of top 15 overused words in poetry (besides “soul”). Be sure to tell me yours.

Overused Words In Contemporary Poetry

1. I – No. 1 on my list is perhaps the most overused word in the English language. “I” gets used so often that I think the rest of the alphabet is about ready to gang up on it. I hate the word with such a passion that I feel like gouging my eyes out when I see it. I-yi-yi-yi … (eyes roll) … lay off it already.
2. Love – This sweet little four letter word gets used almost as often as the word that precedes it. Its only saving grace is that poets often find other uses for the word “I”. OK, we get it. You love what’s-his-name. Don’t send him your poem. Send him a love letter instead.
3. Fuck – If poets can’t talk tenderly about love they’ll talk crassly about fucking, even when the word isn’t even used to describe intercourse. This is probably the most overused curse word in poetry. Most of the time it isn’t necessary. That’s why many poets vow to never use it. But I wouldn’t go that far.
4. Sex – If there’s one thing the poets love it’s sex. And if they aren’t talking about making love or fucking then they’re conjuring up images of wild sex on a lily pad or something. You’d think poets have nothing better to do than have lots of sex. While that sounds extremely gratiating, how about a little more ingenuity?
5. Moon – We got it. It’s nighttime. Now move on.
6. Night/Nocturne – Speaking of night, why does every poet have to write a nocturne or an ode to the night sky? Can someone answer that, please? Why? Why?
7. Hyacinth (or any flower really) – Why do poets like flowers? Are we really all a bunch of sissies?
8. Heron - We understand you grew up near the sea, but do you really have to have a heron in your poems? Or a loon? Why not a penguin?
9. Aubade – The only type of poem poets write more than nocturnes are aubades. Thanks Philip Larkin! You really fucked us good, man.
10. Persephone, or any Greek god - Can’t you just let sleeping gods lie? I mean, they really have a lot to do these days, keeping up with the competition and all. Let the gods go already. They really don’t like being summoned by you mortals and your silly songs.
11. Pale – We know your lover has pale cheeks. You told us that in the last poem. Unless you’re going to impale those cheeks with a moon-shaped hacksaw, we really don’t care.
12. Heart – Jesus, how many hearts do you have? All you need is one. And you’ve broke it already.
13. Angel – Good thing angels aren’t Greek gods. They’d be used more often. Seriously, your poem about loving Jesus isn’t going to be any better because you put a golden-winged angel in it. And, yes, seraphim are angels. It’s an overused word too.
14. Cicada – I love nature poems. But why do they all have chirruping cicadas that lullaby the poet to sleep? Use a grasshopper or a horned toad. Something besides a frickin’ cicada.
15. Dark – OK, you hate love poems. So you write “dark” poems instead. Why do you use the word dark? It doesn’t make the poem any darker. Put a light in it and the dark will be darker. Better yet, quit writing dark poems. They’re depressing.

Well, now that I’ve pissed off the entire pantheon of U.S. poets proud of their moonlighting accomplishments, we can move on to greater things, like extolling the virtues of flarf. But seriously, if you feel that I’ve missed a few, you can add your own. What other overused words do poets use? Come on now, bare your soul.

And on the lighter side of verse, mzbarbielicious – no, seriously, that’s Mz. Barbielicious (and her uno el friendo) – tells us how to write a poem “from the heart”. I just love how she uses your in place of you’re. Makes me think she’s a member of that elite group called the Language Poets.

And On The Not-So-Funny Side

The Poetry Project upcoming calendar.

Liz Henry wages war on the Republican Party.

Mark Strand does George Herbert, class of 1633.

What’s the real debate about?

Then there’s …

Ron Silliman On Sarah Palin

Ron Silliman discusses the election. He’s almost brilliant. He does, in fact, understand electoral politics and his analysis of the electoral landscape is fair and stark. But he totally misses the point on Palin’s selection as VP. It was meant to mend the broken relations between John McCain and the Religious Right. Yes, there are gender politics going on there, but the conservative religious voters who follow Pat Robertson and James Dobson needed someone to cling to because it wasn’t McCain. If he didn’t pick a strong evangelical – and by strong I don’t mean politically, I mean religiously dogmatically – then he was going to ensure that a good number of evangelical voters in key states were going to stay home on election day. As it is, they may not stay home, but I’m not sure that John McCain and the Republican operatives are aware of just how many of their evangelical base are upset with Bush and the Republican Party over the war in Iraq and lost opportunities in other areas of importance to them. They do not necessarily see Obama as their political savior, but in a land of ‘lesser of two evils’ he is looking a lot less like Lucifer than the other guy. Palin just takes one of McCain’s horns away.

Introduction to sci-fi poetry.

The Wergle Flomp winner.

PoemTalk (John Ashbery)

Allen’s Rules For Writing Poetry

1. First, I have no rules.
2. I don’t follow other people’s rules
3. If there is a rule that I’m supposed to follow then I break it.
4. If I’m expected to break a rule then I follow it.
5. Sometimes I write a rule just so I’ll have one to break.
6. I take risks. Even when I’m not taking risks, I’m planning my next rule break.
7. I don’t shun forms or devices because they’re too hard, too easy, or because I don’t like them. If I don’t try it then I can’t beat myself up for failing.
8. I write like an editor, edit like a writer, and read like a critic.
9. No poems go unrevised, except those that don’t need it.
10. There’s nothing I won’t do in a poem, nothing I won’t write about, and no one I won’t include; but I just might decide to leave things out anyway because I have that option.
11. I always limit my rules to ten.

All questions regarding these rules should be directed to the Department of Poetic Policy at (123) YAM-ETA4. Press 1 for discussing the rules, 2 for breaking the rules, 3 for obedience and submission, and 4 if you don’t give a damn. Otherwise, hold. We’ll be with you shortly.

Silliman’s back (unlike AC/DC) in black and white.

Enjoy The Second Coming. It’s been Finnished.

And yet, another Amazon boycott.

The Jewish geniuses a la Andy Warhol.

Meet President Iambic Dimeter with a pyrrhic dangler.

Capitalist poetry. Solicitation anyone?

Time to prepare a submission. Later.

Is Billy bowing out?

Relief from the pain of war.

John Updike on American Art.

Poetry for the joy of God.

Out of the mouths of babes.

$4 per gallon gasoline and a poem on a train.

Debauchery rules.

On the state of writing careers.

A rich bitch a la carte.

Should writers be marketers?

Literary agent Barbara Bauer is suing Wikipedia. Evidently, she thinks the online quasi-encyclopedia is guilty of libel because one of its editors called her the “dumbest of the 20 worst (literary) agents”. In actuality, it wasn’t Wikipedia at all that first let the cat out of the bag.

It was Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, who published her list of 20 worst agents on her website. The date at the top of the page says it was updated in January 2008, but Strauss posted her list on Absolute Write’s forum in 2006. This post on Making Light actually details some of the saga, which includes a mention of the now defunct Miss Snark Blog, and is dated April 2006. You’ll notice that Making Light mentions a cease and desist letter put forward by BB. I’m always delighted by such letters. As an aside, my favorite C&D letter of all came from my battalion commander while I was in Iraq telling me to instruct my wife to cease & desist from making comments that she never actually made. We had an interesting conversation the next day after I let him know that I was well aware of the fact that he is a walking, talking dumb ass. He was pleased to know we were on the same wavelength, a superb feat for him.

Diversions aside, I’ve never met Ms. Bauer, but she doesn’t seem to be any smarter than my former neo-con ball-sucking slave driver BC whose first name rhymes with swill. Angela Hoy of WritersWeekly fame has a humorous anecdote about her on the WW forum. Again, that was in 2006.

I’m not one to go around calling people dumb (well, actually I am, but I usually know them personally), but Barbara Bauer can’t be too smart because if you Google her name, all you see is this negative reputation stuff from 2006, most of which could have been avoided if she had simply ignored the remarks made about her from others and started a blog of her own to engage in some positive reputation management. I guess it never occurred to her that the best defense against the negative words of others is to live the opposite of what they say you are. Novel concept, no?

Anyways, I just wrote this blog post to say that I don’t know whether Barbara Bauer is one of the 20 worst agents or not, but the comment that she is the “the dumbest of the 20 worst” is frickin’ hilarious! That’s one of the best insults I’ve ever read online.

Caveat: Hey, I’ve never claimed to be a nice guy.

A self avowed hobby poet.

You’ll love these gut-busting metaphors. They had me in tears. My favorite:

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

Book Tag – from Dude, Where’s My Country?

America became well off when its workers were paid enough money to afford to buy the very houses and cars and stereos they built with their own hands. That made them happy, content, and not thinking thoughts of revolution or terrorism. The genius of Henry Ford was not only his invention of the assembly line; it was his idea that everyone should get five bucks a day (a bonanza in those times).

How to play:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Consider yourself tagged.

And when all else fails, write a poem.