How does a poet avoid generalizations? Is generalizing inherently bad; making for bad poetry?
The answer to this question, for me, comes from the famous William Carlos Williams line in Spring and All to "be specific"—instead of 'a bird' tell us 'a cardinal', 'a peregrine falcon', or ‘a tree full of house sparrows'. Instead of 'she was beauty itself' describe what the beauty looks like, smells like, tastes like.
You can make general statements in a poem that are expanded upon by the image/metaphor, such as: 'In the morning, bathed in eucalyptus, skin moist and gleaming from the shower, she was beauty itself, one frame in the film projected for me, the only viewer ensconced in her towering portrait.'
Specificity beats generalization because it's intimate; it zooms in on a specific detail or feeling with a scientific accuracy that makes it impossible for the reader to avoid the feelings/philosophy you are trying to evoke.
“The poet’s business,” Williams writes in his autobiography, is “not to talk in vague categories but to write particularly, as a physician works, upon a patient, upon the thing before him in the particular to discover the universal.”
Below is a list of common categories that poets over-generalize + some basic tips on how to practice writing specifically:
Precise Nouns and Verbs Weak words like "things," "stuff," "went," "did" rob your poetry of power. Choose nouns that are intensely visual and verbs that crackle with action and movement. Instead of "He walked slowly," try "He inched, arthritis gnarling each step."
Specific Personal Details Ground your poems in real sensory details from your life experience. Instead of "I felt sad," explore the precise source - "Raindrops beaded on the coffin's lid, echoing my drip-dripping tears."
Avoid Abstractions Abstractions like "truth," "beauty," "love" are vague without vivid illustration. Use metaphors and similes to give intellectual concepts life, like "Love blossomed/a sunflower arching towards the light."
Particular, Not Universal While some argue poetry should capture universal truths, the personal and hyper-specific is often more evocative and relatable. Zoom in on tiny, unique moments and observations.
Statements in poetry aren't taboo, but they can come off juvenile to the reader because they assume that your reader needs the black-and-white explanatory of 'this is life's lesson' or 'this is what love means' or 'this is god'. Some poets use statements provocatively or as a jumping-off point that they then complicate or subvert through the rest of the poem. The tension between statement and poetic exploration can be compelling—if it’s used intentionally.
The urge to explain a metaphor in a statement is common when you're learning poetry, but it can do the opposite in a well-crafted poem; imagine if, as you are listening to a song you love, right as the melody returns, there's a glitch where the artist screams: 'MELODY', and then you hear the melody.
Williams was also inspired by the work of avant-garde painters and artists, who responded to the tumult of the early 20th Century. His 1934 poem This Is Just To Say, draws on a concept of modern art: the ready-made. Like Marcel Duchamp, who famously exhibited a urinal in an art gallery in 1917, Williams seems to make art of the artless, out of the found or ephemeral: the poem reads like a note left on a kitchen table.
What do you think? Is this mastery of specificity, or simple generalization?
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams,''This Is Just to Say'' from The Collected Poems: Volume I, 1909-1939, copyright ©1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.