I’m not a huge reader of poems, and I think that’s exactly why I posted Epithalamion, come upon randomly in an anthology of homosexual literature throughout the ages. It goes beyond an overabundance of words – pours words out until they sit in dense clusters of meaning and images that create something altogether new. A sensory world arrived at by the mind.

Being a romance writer, wordy overabundance is all part of the job. Being any kind of writer, I sit on the wordy end of the scale. I am no Hemingway to say things baldly, despite the previously discussed wisdom of Just Saying The Thing.

So I feel like I have a lot to learn from that lusty, movement-filled poem.

Of all the romance writers I read, I think Meredith Duran puts wordiness to best use. From her gorgeous new book, A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal:

Together they crossed the threshold into the bedroom, sat onto the bed, still kissing, so earnestly, yes, this was earnest; he would have kissed this woman for hours no matter where he found her. He swept his hand up her back, into her hair, and realised his hand was trembling. Hot and desperate and gluttonous and hesitant and uncertain and tentative as a boy with his first woman: this moment, this simple bedding, was turning into something strange.