Spotlight on UNF Faculty Poets

Clark Lunberry

Dr. Lunberry's explanation of "Words Away".

"Words Away" is thought of as a kind of 'process poem,' built around the working out of every possible variation of the five words, 'He / had / away / with / words.' It turns out that there are 120 different ways that those five words can be shifted about, before exhausting all the options.

Originally, I¹d intended to work with the more familiar, clichéd
expression:

'He had a way with words.'

However, laying out all the variations of those six words, instead of five, amounted to using over a thousand such arrangements; clearly, that was going to be overwhelming.

Therefore, literally, by doing 'away' with words (making 'a way,' 'away'), I arrived at the much more manageable (and self-fulfilling) configuration that makes up 'Words Away.'

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