Weighing the Weight of Little Words

They say it’s the little things that matter. I couldn’t agree more! Recently, I was in an open mic Zoom session in which one of the readers read a poem that excluded every “the” possible, and several other small words like “an” and “a.” These are known as articles.

Sometimes this pruning is done in the mistaken belief that to do so will make a piece feel more poem-like. (Though I don’t fully understand this reasoning.) Sometimes, it’s to cut the written piece to the least number of words possible to quicken the pace.

While I agree that, often, we don’t need little words, there are times they ought to be there. Consider this a rant if you like. But I’m all for weighing the worth of those tiny babies carefully before tossing them out with the bathwater.

Let’s take a look at some uses of articles and note where they should be present, and when they may be cut.

Keep for clarity

Sometimes the article the needs to appear to clarify meaning. In this selection from Dorianne Laux’ poem “Urn” we have:

… dead
are buried and gone,
the light doused for eternity,
the nevermore of their particulars
ground up …

In this case there is a short list of two items once the dead are buried. We have the light and the nevermore of their particulars. (Wonderful phrase!) Laux is using the word nevermore as a noun and the line would make no sense without the as a signal that this is so.

Keep for identifying something specific

e e cummings wrote “there’s nothing as something as one.” When we use the article a/an it signifies one of a group. “A movie.” “An ostrich.” But using the signifies a particular something.

As cummings states, there is nothing (as wonderful) as something (specific) …

In this Sharon Olds poem, “The Winter After Your Death”, we have:

… nothing is left but black and white–
the quick steam of my breath, the dead
accurate shapes of the weeds, still, as if
pressed …

Here the poet is concerned that we have a particular steam of breath (my), and particular shapes of the weeds (the ones the persona of the poem is observing before her).

Keep for beat/cadence

In metrical poetry the article the can be used as a soft beat. In Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Hunting of the Snark”  we have:

In the midst / of the word / he was try / ing to say,
In the midst / of his laugh / ter and glee,
He had soft / ly and sud / denly van / ished away—
For the Snark / was a Boo / jum, you see.

In that last line the the could have been omitted. We’d have had, For Snark was a Boojum, you see. Which is perfectly clear, and in this case particular because Snark is capitalized as a name. But then the metrical pattern Carroll had set up would have been broken. The is needed for the soft-soft-hard anapestic rhythm he’d created.

Keep for patterning

And we often need articles to further a pattern we’ve set up other than meter. For example,

In Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” we get:

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker …

Keep for creating mood

Since dispensing with articles can quicken the pace, this may not be wanted in writing that is meant to feel slow and languorous. The number of words and the length of sentences can affect how your piece is perceived. So, keep all the articles in if you want the reader to spend time with a longer line.

In Robert Bly’s very short “Love Poem” there are only 23 words. I can’t reproduce it here. It is at this link. In this poem he uses the word the four times with noun phrases in just three lines. By his use of this structure, we get a slow, sort of wonderment about being in love.

Where we can easily dispense with an article

Aside from these times when an article should be used, there are times when it can easily be dispensed with—and in some cases, even for the same reasons that are articulated above. That is, not using the may facilitate meter, patterning, mood. And as long as clarity and particularity (if needed) is already handled, why not? For example, in this poem by Ada Limón, What It Looks Like to Us and the Words We Use,” the initial use of the before white oaks serves as the missing article for the other two nouns and their adjectives: Spanish moss, and spider webs. There is no need to repeat it.

… and how we stood there,

low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss,

and spider webs …

Think before you cut

I know this has been a bit of a rant about small things, but the use or non-use of articles can affect so many important aspects of your writing. So …  pause … before you dump those babies out. Consider if these tiny words are doing big jobs.