The Zen of Words

Dear Living Dark reader,

Some years ago I started telling the students in my literature and writing classes that language has an alchemical power. I usually did this when we were studying poetry, although I applied the idea to prose as well.

This always necessitated a pause to offer a brief explanation of the word “alchemy.” Then, once that was out of the way, I went on to explain that there is a positively magical power in language, particularly in the poetic use of it, since language enables eac...