I Keep a Box of Words on My Desk
For when I need a little inspiration
In her book Poemcrazy, Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge describes how she steals words and tapes them to blank tickets (the kind that come in big rolls of perforated tickets you can pull off and sell for raffles, etc.). She keeps her words in a velvet pouch. She says, “The great thing about collecting words is they’re free; you can borrow them, trade them in or toss them out.”
I took her advice and starting saving words. I hoard them in a box I bought one year at Christmas time. It’s meant to be a gift box, I think, a ribbon tied on one corner and the words “Hot Cocoa served here” written on it in red and green. It’s full of red Admit One tickets on which I’ve written words: Sabbath, reclassify, holiday, lifetime, grave, apology, scratch. There are hundreds of words in my box.
When I want to write a poem but need inspiration, I pull words from my box and line them up on my desk. There are no rules, mind you. If I don’t like some of the words I’ve pulled out, I can trade them for new ones. The words don’t mind.
Sometimes the words suggest the poem, but sometimes they simply add a little flair. Flair is a good word, by the way. You should add it to your box. Or bag. Or whatever container you choose to use for your word hoard.
Could you use the words for writing fiction? Of course! Remember, there are no rules. You can use them for an article or personal essay, too, if you’re willing to take a chance on a little random chaos creeping in. Use them in an email to your boss, if you dare.
Let’s reach into the box: cylinder, dues, drudgery, elegant.
We pay dues to the air to the earth to the universe, an elegant, cylindrical column of lost complaints against the horizon, turning drudgery to daydreams
See how cylinder became cylindrical? You can do that, too, when it’s your box and your rules.
Go forth and collect words. But first, how about a little reading? Maybe you’ll find some words you want to keep. Here’s an article by Julie Provost with a very timely message…