Tag: painting with words

The poetic artist? Painting with words? You know the saying “A picture paints a thousand words.”.

It certainly does! After all, one can look at a picture and make up stories about the subject character. A painting can inspire as many ideas as the number of people who see it, for each will have their own interpretation.

Each picture is seen through the eyes of the beholder – and via their artistic opinions and preferences.

I enjoy taking photographs and then writing poems about them…a picture inspiring a thousand words. Well, almost that many.

But this being a poetry blog, let’s ask how many pictures can a poem paint?

I like to say that I paint with words. Each verse conjures up a mental image – particularly if the poem is like an abstract painting. But that mental image is open to so many different interpretations since there are no visual cues.

The mood of the verse, the colour of the poem and its surroundings, the strength of the words, the way they are spoken. It is different each time.

Every writer has a specific character in mind, a feeling, a message they wish to put across. But to make that too obvious is to leave the reader with no choice. In an abstract poem, the finer details are left to the person reading the poem; the poet invites them to join in with the writing. They subsequently become co-creators.

You see, the poetic artist is YOU!

You create the picture via the medium of words.

Want to be convinced?