I'm looking for the title of a poem, and hopefully the entire poem.

It was very short and had a sort of Emily Dickenson rhythm.  It was
about how difficult it isto find the perfect word for a poem, and
oddly enough (now that I think back on it), it actually used a lot of
cliches: something like ...

The perfect word
Is white (clean?) as bone,
Hard (clean?) as stone
... etc.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 23 Jan 2004 11:29 PST

Could this be your poem?

http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=985

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Clarification of Question by jeffpalley-ga on 23 Jan 2004 11:41 PST

No, it definitely wasn't that Archibald MacLeish poem.  It was shorter
and more symmetric; probably rhymed couplets but maybe
alternate-rhymed quatrains, and maybe 8-16 lines at most.  I think it
was at the front of an English textbook and my recollection is that
the idea the teacher was trying to get across is that synonyms aren't
interchangeable (or maybe, put better, that no synonym is a perfect
synonym).

Thanks though,
Jeff

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 23 Jan 2004 12:02 PST

How about this one?

"The written word
 Should be clean as bone,
 Clear as light,
 Firm as stone.
 Two words are not
 As good as one.

-Anonymous"

http://www.stcsacramento.org/content/newsltrs/CL02_2001.pdf

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Clarification of Question by jeffpalley-ga on 23 Jan 2004 12:52 PST

Yes!  That's the poem.  You're amazing.  How'd you do it?!
If you should ever find who "Anonymous" really was, let me know and
I'll take you out to dinner next time you're in Santa Barbara.

Thanks,
Jeff
JeffPalley@msn.com

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 23 Jan 2004 12:54 PST

Unfortunately, I have not been able to identify the anonymous author of the poem.

May I post the poem as the official answer to your question?

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Clarification of Question by jeffpalley-ga on 23 Jan 2004 13:38 PST

Yes it's definitely the "official" answer to my question.

Thanks again,
Jeff

Thanks for an interesting quest! 

The first thing that sprang to mind when I read your question was
MacLeish's "Ars Poetica." Close, but no cigar, as they say. Next I
went on a keyphrase hunt, and I struck gold with this search string:

Google Web Search: "word" + "clean as bone"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=word+%22clean+as+bone

"The written word 
 should be clean as bone, 
 clear as light, 
 firm as stone. 
 Two words are not 
 as good as one. 

 Anon." 

Robert Sward/English Division, Cabrillo College
http://www.cabrillo.cc.ca.us/divisions/english/engl/rsward/1B-BEST98.html

Several websites have reproduced the poem, but not a one of them gives
the poem a title, and all of them list the author as "Anon" (This
would be that prolific poet Anon Y. Mous, who has written many
volumes' worth of poetry, and never collects any royalties.)

Thanks so much for the offer of dinner in Santa Barbara! I have not
visited that beautiful town since 1971. It may be another thirty years
before I make my way back there, but when I do, I may take you up on
that dinner. It will be easy for you to find me: I'll be the
red-haired old lady standing in the middle of State Street looking
hungry. ;-)

Best wishes,
pinkfreud