Images
It’s usually better to use words appealing to the five senses (sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell) than to just tell the reader what to feel. For example, “the rivers ran red with blood” is more vivid than “there was violence.” Like the fiction-writers say, “Show don’t tell!”
Language that relies on the five senses is called “sensory detail,” “imagery,” “specific detail,” or “concrete images.” Examples:
Orange cat
Tears
Roasting garlic
Clammy hands
The smell of rain
Rottweiler
Blood
Language naming or describing something that does NOT rely on the five senses is called “abstract.” Here are examples:
Love/loving
Death/dying
Sadness/being sad
Despair/despairing
Hope/hoping
Both kinds of language are good! Also, they work well together. When you want to use abstract language, those abstract words will pack a big punch because of the contrast with the sensory detail.
As an example, this is Tear it Down by Jack Gilbert. Notice that the poem is jam-packed with sensory detail, but Gilbert is happy to use abstract words like “love” and “marriage.”
My rule of thumb is three sensory images for every abstract image. So if you want to say “love,” you also have to say “almonds,” “sulfuric acid,” and “iris.”
Another way of using these abstract words is to say something really unusual or unique with them. Here’s Emily Dickinson showing us how it’s done:
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
Dickinson uses “immortality” and “death” in such a unique way no one could say she is vague.
And finally… always avoid cliché! A cliché is a phrase or image that is worn out, over-used, or extremely familiar. “He broke my heart” is a cliché. “I cried my eyes out” is a cliché. “Her blood ran cold” is a cliché. These are so over-used that they don’t add much to the poem.
Ask yourself: have I heard this before?
The most important thing to remember is that this is YOUR poem. You write in YOUR voice. You don’t need to borrow other people’s phrases.