Forbidden Words!

I recently unearthed, or rather unstacked, this list of "forbidden words" that I've used over the years with beginning poetry students. It's interesting how often, in young writers' reach for the grand gesture, they dip into this gothic vocabulary. I did. And some of the most promising young writers do, too. Unfortunately, instead of the drama we hope to produce, we get melodrama. The words, by the way, were collected from an anthology of "best" high school writing.

I often assign students to use as many of these as possible. Hilarity, as the movie blurbers used to say, ensues!