to see clearly

…the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion—all in one.

—John Ruskin, “Of Modern Landscape”

tell me what you know

I want your poem to tell me how much you know about poetry.

no retelling

Tell me a story I’ll never be able to retell as well.

new cliché

Compel, don’t tell.

see it slant

Before you can ‘tell it slant’ you must first see it at an angle.

tell it

Necessarily the times had shifted poetry toward rhetoric.