Minimax Poem by Julia Keefer (2015)
Maximal is generously spilling rainbow ripples of sense imagery
Cascading clauses stuffed with succulent similes
Tone color towering over heaps of
Personal compost
Making the stink swell with assonance
Swing with cadences of consonance
March to the beat of alliteration
Away from the brittle twig of
Minimalism
Minimal is subtle
It respects the reader’s imagination
Lets the story skim over the surface
Skipping pebbles that don’t sink but wink in an anthology of
Flash fiction
Americans say the bigger the better except when it comes to language which must not be
“Wordy”
What must you kill to be minimal?
Amputate adverbs/anaesthetize adjectives
Vomit verbs/
Strip syntax/
Rape rhythm
To stop that metronome of misery
Delete drama/
Show don’t tell: One slice of lemon is
Enough
One infinitesimal air bubble
Blows out a universe
A tiny, knife-life shard
Of igneous rock shoots out of maximal volcanoes
I prefer a mini-root canal with a maxi-sabbatical
Give too much and will erodes
Take too little and hope corrodes
Think too big and the world explodes
Think too small and your life implodes