Poetry from Daily Life: Say it with style and don't overstay your welcome

My guest this week on "Poetry from Daily Life" is Amos Bridges, who lives in Springfield, Missouri. Amos is the editor-in-chief for the Springfield News-Leader who gave this column the green light two years ago. He says he's grateful for the teachers who raised him and those who encouraged him along the way, as well as the reporters who inspire him every day. A unique fact about Amos? His career at the News-Leader is now old enough to drink. ~ David L. Harrison

Dictionary definitions are funny things, using a pile of words to describe the work just one can do. But sometimes the group can weave a little more magic than just one flying solo.

The word "pithy" is an example. On its own, it's not a word I tend to drop into casual conversation. But its definition is one of my favorites as a writer.

Merriam-Webster defines "pithy" as "having substance and point : tersely cogent." Cambridge is sharper, defining a pithy statement as one "expressing an idea cleverly in a few words." For my money, the Oxford dictionary does just that with its definition: "Concise and forcefully expressive."

That right there is the grail that writers of both journalistic and poetic persuasions spend a lifetime chasing. If someone carves "concise and forcefully expressive" on my tombstone, I reckon I'll have done alright.

Plenty of other wordsmiths have written about saying a lot with a little. There's a Traveling Wilburys song where Tom Petty sings, "She wrote a long letter / on a short piece of paper." A similar sentiment gets attributed (wrongly or rightly) to Mark Twain: "I would have written a shorter letter, but did not have the time."

Slinging words into sentences can be a slog but it's not so hard to get a point across. Being "concise and forcefully expressive" — finding the word or phrase that cuts like a scalpel — takes effort. I often think of it as chipping away at a rough idea to find the diamond inside. On a good day, you might stumble upon one or two glinting in the dirt. Other times you've got to work at it until your fingers bleed.

It's a heck of a thing when you find one of those gems, twinkling facets hinting at hidden depths. It's why many writers, journalists included, take time to polish an opening line until it smacks the reader between the eyes and demands attention, presenting images and unanswered questions that they can spend the rest of the piece answering. A few of my favorite first lines include:

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." - Stephen King, "The Gunslinger."

"The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason." - Neal Stephenson, "Seveneves."

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” - Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

Whether they leave you curious, dubious or inspired, each one tells you — concisely, forcefully — "there's a story here."

I hope the "Poetry from Daily Life" series has evoked a similar reaction. As it reaches an end, almost two years and 100 columns later, I hope the weekly word count packed meaning into its paragraphs, sparked ideas and prompted readers to look at the world with a new perspective. I have looked forward to editing each entry, searching for those concentrated bits of wisdom and expressive turns of phrase. I am grateful to the writers who shared their ideas, making their points cleverly and without unnecessary padding.

As I come to the end of my own column, the next to last in the series, I'll close with a poem I wrote as a senior in high school. It's appropriate on a few levels: It's a poem presented as a definition, it's short, and it was part of a collection of poems and essays that won me a writing scholarship — judged by David Harrison, among others. That encouragement eventually led me to the News-Leader and the editor's chair, where I found myself answering David's pitch for a column about poetry with an enthusiastic "yes." Pretty poetic, in the end.

Here's my poem. I hope you've been inspired to find many more of your own.

Virginity:

A combination

of bad luck

and good judgment.

Amos Bridges is editor-in-chief of the Springfield News-Leader.