Get Sensual

Anytime you take a creative writing class, whether it be poetry, fiction, or essay, the issue of sensuality will arise. Now I don’t mean sensuality as in sex, but then again, it’s a good example. What is sex without sensuality? What is sex without foreplay? B_O_R_I_N_G! I suppose it could be a quickie, and those are fine when you’re all hot and bothered before you begin. But if you really want to warm things up first, how do you go about it?

It’s a good question to ask on Valentine’s Day, the big foreplay day of the year. If you are a lover, then you know that today is an opportunity for the sensual you better not forget. At the very least, you better pick up some blood red roses (appealing to the sense of sight and smell) and a little dark chocolate, too (ooh, there’s nothing like a little bittersweet melting in your mouth and the flick of tongue on fingertips). You’ll want to play that sexy jazz CD you bought for just such an occasion (listen to the sax weave in and out of that throbbing bass line). A dab of perfume or cologne at the throat and below the belly button. The whisper of silk slipping effortlessly to the floor. The rough scratch of a five ‘o’clock shadow, the smooth skin of a downy cheek. You get the picture. Because the picture, the taste, the touch, the smell, the flavor is my point.

We have these wonderful minds that can recreate almost any image by using words. If we use the words well, we can place our readers/ listeners square in the middle of ecstasy, sorrow, elation, disappointment, fear, fury. But not with these abstract words. By themselves, these words are almost as exciting as terms from a medical dictionary. This is what is meant in writing circles by “Show don’t tell.” “Tell” is a technical manual. “Show” is a function of our imaginations ( to create imagery). The only way we can do this is to employ nouns and verbs that actively describe these multifarious abstractions. What does fear smell like to you--sick sweat, dried urine, old blood on a car seat? How does ecstasy feel? A swift, wet kiss, then gone? How does disappointment affect the body--slump of shoulders, bitter twist of lips, tight wounded voice? Lemons, lions, lapis lazuli?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves. A poet friend says that she won’t allow herself to use an abstract word unless she “buys” it first by using so many descriptive, sense-oriented words or phrases. I edit any piece of creative writing by rereading it with all five senses in mind. Have I used them all? Is there one I’ve inadvertently omitted? I am a very visual person with a strong sense of touch and feel. I tend to omit sound and smell when I write and these are vital to reconstructing memory, especially the sense of smell. Think back to your childhood. What memory does the smell of bacon or coffee bring to mind? Isn’t there something that reeks of country summers in the smell of skunk breezing through a car window on a warm night--so much so that you really can’t call it unpleasant? How does the sound of wet tires on steaming pavement affect you?

This week write a poem or piece--make it a love poem if you like--using all of the five senses. Read it aloud, first to yourself and then to someone else. FEEL IT!