A Lifted Life of Leisure

[YaMarVa]

It might just be my small vocabulary (or that I live in England and have never seen the world happenstance before). It isn't necessarily that they are archaic words, they're good - but you can have too much of a good thing, and I think you do.

Toiling, stoic, etc - it's good you know the meaning and can use them, but you can't make a cake with only butter. I'd just swop a few for simpler things to build a bit of a better flow and understanding, and then throw in more formal words like that.

I believe I understand your critique of word choice, and have noted them in my editing pages.

"Toiling, stoic, etc - it's good you know the meaning and can use them, but you can't make a cake with only butter."
Wouldn’t using only butter to bake a cake be like using the same, simple, words? Not a diverse field of descriptive words? I feel descriptive and precise word choice is like using wheat flower or goat's milk to give more depth the the cake's taste.

In attempting to be concise, I aimed to use words that would pin-point the exactness of significance and description I desire to convey in my poem.

Toiling – hard, exhaustive labor in weariness or pain; close to the point of futility. Generally applied to the lower classes as its origin comes from the 1200’s when this type labor was only done by the lower classes.

Stoic - a person who maintains or affects the mental attitude advocated by the Stoics; unmoved by joy or grief, and submit without complaint to unavoidable necessity.


These both display the exact point I am attempting to convey without being too wordy.
Are you suggesting that instead of using large-umbrella words to make my point (toiling - the hard working, painful, low class laborer), I should build up these meanings by describing the hard work and pain of this low-class laborer with more plain language?


I should also note that as an American Romantic my poems, and general writing, is geared towards my audience; my nation’s compatriots and contemporaries.

Thanks for taking part in my editing, and poetry learning, process. This is a fun exercise.