Evocations vs. Declarations

As you've probably figured out by now, I'm keen on photographs. I make them. I study them. I rely on them. Always. I go out taking pictures the way some people go out shopping, and when I'm stuck for light or life in a sentence, I start sifting through my images. Hunting for details. Hunting for mood.

But you have to be careful when working with photographs. You have to know what they mean. They're not definitive, that's for sure. There is always a before and always an after to every picture taken, always something elusive and lovely just outside the frame.

I'm interested in the suggested, the evoked, when I work on my stories, poems, and memoirs. I'm interested in the words in column 2 below, try to work past or through that which sits in column 1. I'm not writing legal briefs or journalism, and so I have that freedom. I have that right, that opportunity, and so I seize it.

Column 1 Column 2

Explain/ Illuminate
Record/ Remember
Argue/ Explore
Retaliate/ Evolve
Condemn/ Liberate
Accuse/ Understand
Obliterate/ Rescue
Attach/ Approach
Demand/ Long for