Wordle-ing My Manuscripts

I’ve noticed some poet friends Wordle-ing (is that a verb?) their poetry manuscripts.  I couldn’t resist.  After I finished my first manuscript some years ago I made a list of words I felt I overused in it and then forbid myself from using them in the next manuscript.  If only I had had Worldle!

Anyway, I’m not going to bother with Pear Slip as I think we all know what the most common word is there.  But here we go for the other manuscripts.

This is the word cloud for The Erotic Postulate:

Now it omits “common” words which thankfully takes out “the” and “a” and whatnot, but that also takes out “no” and “not” which I’m quite fond of.  So I took a look at the word count breakdown and found these numbers: “not” comes in at 65 times with “no” at 42.  As for my popular words: they don’t show “I” and “you” but “I” 168 times and “you” 115 times with “we” at 61.  “One” is there 87 times with “two” 77 times. “Like” is there 71 times.  Other favorites: “Light” 44 times; “line” or “lines” 57 times; “body” or “bodies” 45 times.  And all those colors: “white” 41 times; “red” 34 times; “blue” 27 times; “black” 23 times; and so forth.  “Love” 21 times…

Let’s move on.  Here is the word cloud for Skin Shift:

I really love that word “one” – 65 times here.  “Two” drops off to 28.  Naturally character names abound: “Narcissus” from the “Narcissus Resists” sequence; “David” and “Rut” from the “Platos de Sal” sequence.  “Not” is here 88 times with “no” at 49.  “Skin” is really important in this manuscript.  And again, colors, the body.  We poets have our word hordes!

I’m going to hold off on Impossible Gotham since I’m still composing poems for it.  And I think I’ll hold off on Smite & Spoon for now too.  There’s plenty here to digest!