Life's About the Adjectives

This is a poem I wrote last year. It won the 2007 Willard Espy Award for light verse.

Life’s about the adjectives,
it’s how we know the world.
Nouns, you see, are only names,
with adjectives - life is knurled.

 

Think about the apple,
just fruit upon the tree,
red ripe skin with tasty pulp,
better lets us see.

 

Providing us the texture,
of color if you will,
ADJ allows us space,
to give our lines the fill.

 

Life’s about the adjectives,
spice for the written line,
Verbs, you see, are motion,
and index things like time.

 

Think about the race car,
going around the lane,
zipping fast with lightning speed,
better feeds the brain.

 

Providing us the feeling,
of nature if you will,
ADJ gives the taste,
to writings we distill.

 

Verbs contain the action,
and nouns have the heart,
adjectives add the flavor,
for cooks of written art.

 

Life’s about the adjectives,
how else could it be,
that words paint the pigments,
in poems for us to see?

Reviews

[Constance]

This is an excellent write, very light and entertaining, yet something anyone who loves words can chew on a bit.
I was in a forum the other day where a staunch "poetic master" was trying to claim that too many adjectives ruined a fine poem by a friend. If he had taken out half of the adjectives, as the reviewer suggested, it would have been half as good. The key I think is using good adjectives, that paint the real picture, instead of obscuring it.
One of the best I've read on the cafe, all told.

[April Child]

Think about the apple,
just fruit upon the tree,
red ripe skin with tasty pulp,
better lets us see

Congratulations on winning an award with this one. It is a great poem, fun but getting its point across. It IS all about the adjectives.

[Rambling Prose]

While ( I ) am a mere pronoun ( I ) am truly impressed with this write - BRILLIANT! It's no wonder it won the Willard Espy Award & rightly so!

While I'm rating this at 100% - if you check your stats on this, single piece, afterward, it's going to show 93 something. I have no idea why this is so, but I found it to be true, hence, my being hesitant to be the first reviewer of a new write. I simply couldn't sit around and wait with this one! I LOVE IT!