genre fluid

The work was ‘transgenre’.

word of his own

The critic Maurice speaks of the pompatus of poetry.

[Steve Miller’s word]

clean copy

The editor delivered the bad news: The proofreader had no questions about the text.

nonce only

He had a knack for neologisms that made the existing word-stock seem ample.

new word, new world

Consider this neologism: “dianamic.” Not dynamic; not dialectic…but to fuse the two words into a new one. Think of dianamic when considering the poems of Wallace Stevens, with his ongoing struggle between imagination (the life of the mind) and reality (a being in the physical world). Dianamic is not the division between two elements, two ideologies, two aesthetics; it's the forces and the flux acting between the two.

too close for the cold eye

A friend’s review: a freview.

gang of slang

Poet, be a ringleader of slang.

no word for that

[Valéry’s] horror of philosophic jargon is so convincing, so contagious, that one shares it forever after, so that one can no longer read a serious philosopher except with suspicion or distaste, henceforth rejecting any falsely mysterious or learned term. Most philosophy boils down to a crime of lèse-langage, a crime against the Word. Any professional expression—any profession of the schools—must be proscribed and identified with a misdemeanor. Anyone who, in order to settle a difficulty or solve a problem, invents a high-sounding, pretentious word, indeed a word at all, is unconsciously dishonest. In a letter to F. Brunot, Valéry once wrote, “It takes more intelligence to do without a word than to introduce one.”

—E.M. Cioran,“Valéry Facing His Idols,” Anathemas and Admirations (Quartet Books, Ltd, 1992), translated by Richard Howard.

traceur poet

Poet, be a traceur through the languescape!

kaleidosonic

The poem was ‘kaleidosonic’.

'surrhetorical' poetry

The poetry of Gertrude Stein could be called ‘surrhetorical’.

peri-perspicacious

A critic should be 'periperspicacious'.

Utopoeia

Utopoeia: the poem as utopia built from language; a place where the mind wants to dwell forever.