Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

by Julie Coulter Bellon

As I was looking at some of the paintings that were posted on this blog recently, I thought of how pictures can really evoke emotions. But, since we, as authors, deal more with words, I thought of how even small lines of words can also evoke emotions in a reader. I have included three poems today from famous poets, (even though I hated poetry when I was at BYU because I never interpreted it the same as the professor), but I wonder, do they bring out any emotions or feelings in you? What is your interpretation of them? Do you really believe the line, "A picture is worth a thousand words?"



Seeker Of Truth by E. E. Cummings

seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here

The Soul's Expression by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

With stammering lips and insufficient sound

I strive and struggle to deliver right

That music of my nature, day and night

With dream and thought and feeling interwound

And inly answering all the senses round

With octaves of a mystic depth and height

Which step out grandly to the infinite

From the dark edges of the sensual ground.

This song of soul I struggle to outbear

Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,

And utter all myself into the air:

But if I did it,--as the thunder-roll

Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there,

Before that dread apocalypse of soul.

Dust in the Eyes by Robert Frost


If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes
Will keep my talk from getting overwise,
I'm not the one for putting off the proof.
Let it be overwhelming, off a roof
And round a corner, blizzard snow for dust,
And blind me to a standstill if it must.