Sage Cohen's Tip A Day: Write Your Own Language

Editor’s Note: Throughout the month of April, Reading Local and Portland poet Sage Cohen will celebrate National Poetry Month by featuring a new tip each day.

April 16: Write your own language

Urban legend claims that the Eskimo have hundreds of words for “snow.” What topic or phenomenon do you know a whole lot about? Love? The theory of relativity? Grasshoppers? Ultimate Frisbee? Invent ten new words that express the various facets of your topic. For example, maybe there’s a word for the summer thrill of grasshopper song and another word describing the fragile optimism of a grasshopper’s leap. Write a poem using at least three words from your new vocabulary.

Sage Cohen is the author of WRITING THE LIFE POETIC: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writers Digest Books, 2009), THE PRODUCTIVE WRITER: Tips & Tools for Writing More, Stressing Less and Creating success (Writer’s Digest Books, forthcoming in 2010) and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. Learn more at www.writingthelifepoetic.typepad.com.

Image credit Poets.org.