but isn’t normalcy – when we have it – the cause of ennui?
Or a cause.
Or its fertile soil in which to grow, anyhow.
Alice says:
Yes, I do suppose you are right. Perhaps a word for benumbed coupled with despair would be a better combo. Maybe I ought to long for ennui like I long for normalcy. Nice poem!
Thank you! I hadn’t heard that word in awhile. It’s a smooth, cool word.
Numbed despair. I often wish for perfect words that don’t exist, to express just such miserable sentiments – or really queerly specific shades of happiness. There’s no way to make such words, since what I’m really looking for is something freighted with legacy, an odd soft word with sharp edges that has been passed down through Victorian hands and almost forgotten on the way to ours. Poe’s a good place to find words like that, but they’re never the one you really wanted.
Plus…I love Poe, but…he’s kind of a jackass.
awessendorf says:
I make up newish words all the time. But the problem with them is that they are just born out of existing words. Pale variations that lack sparkle. Like you said they need a history to work.
And oh yes Poe the wonderful jackagenius. Love him! Here in Baltimore you can visit his grave. I have a stone from the graveyard on my bookshelf. Thought it might bring me some inspiration or something.
but isn’t normalcy – when we have it – the cause of ennui?
Or a cause.
Or its fertile soil in which to grow, anyhow.
Yes, I do suppose you are right. Perhaps a word for benumbed coupled with despair would be a better combo. Maybe I ought to long for ennui like I long for normalcy. Nice poem!
Thank you! I hadn’t heard that word in awhile. It’s a smooth, cool word.
Numbed despair. I often wish for perfect words that don’t exist, to express just such miserable sentiments – or really queerly specific shades of happiness. There’s no way to make such words, since what I’m really looking for is something freighted with legacy, an odd soft word with sharp edges that has been passed down through Victorian hands and almost forgotten on the way to ours. Poe’s a good place to find words like that, but they’re never the one you really wanted.
Plus…I love Poe, but…he’s kind of a jackass.
I make up newish words all the time. But the problem with them is that they are just born out of existing words. Pale variations that lack sparkle. Like you said they need a history to work.
And oh yes Poe the wonderful jackagenius. Love him! Here in Baltimore you can visit his grave. I have a stone from the graveyard on my bookshelf. Thought it might bring me some inspiration or something.
That’s right, you’re in Baltimore! I better watch what I say about Poe.
I love Poe, but if I read too much of him it starts to noticeably infect my prose style.