Friday, September 07, 2012

I'm banning the word 'blood' and its variants from my poetic language. Going through my poems trying to pick a reading list for tomorrow and I can't believe how much blood is in them. I've got - blood clots, bloods of Christ, blood-rock, blood waves, blood-birds, bloodied skins, Blood, under the blood... and so on! Not quite sure what this says about me but it has to stop!!

9 comments:

Titus said...

Oh, that's brilliant! I really, conciously, have to stop myself using 'yet' and 'still' in everything I write. Have a great weekend by the way, sorry I couldn't be there.

Jim Murdoch said...

With me it was always ‘truth’ and ‘light’ both of which I often capitalised long before I read any Emily Dickinson. Like JoAnne I’m still prone to certain favourite words like ‘interesting’—do I have a single blog I wonder without that word in it?—or ‘nice’ and it seems I use ‘seems’ an awful lot too; I’ve just been editing some of my short stories and it’s everywhere.

If I were you rather than steer clear of blood I would follow your instincts and explore it further. Perhaps there is a collection there. Get it out your system.

Hugh McMillan said...

I used to be the same with gulls

Marion McCready said...

thanks titus, had a great time at callander!

jim, it seems you're just such an interesting and nice guy ;)

I've a fair few gulls myself but more noticibly, cormorants, which I'm going to have to put an end to and the furies too!

Roxana said...

haha

i think that someone made a great analysis of Poe based of his obsession with this word :-)

Marion McCready said...

well there you go, something else I never knew! :)

Clarissa Aykroyd said...

You may feel as though you're using certain images/words too much in your work, but I think at the very least this kind of thing (an unconscious but semi-obsessive preoccupation with certain themes!) can tell us a lot about what's going on inside our hearts and minds...I've had similar experiences. I like the suggestion of building a collection around it and getting it out of your system.

Marion McCready said...

thanks clarissa, though I think I may have gone beyond writing it out of my system to falling into comfortable language!

Marion McCready said...

in saying that, there may be something deeper for me to explore here beyond the words