Dear SunWinkers:

If you’ve been following our column, you’ve gotten a pretty good survey of the basic essentials in the modern poet’s tool belt. You’ve learned how to use a hammer, a screwdriver, a chalk line, a carpenter’s square, and a level. A poet uses metaphor, simile, imagery, line breaks, sonority, and rhythm every time one sits down to write a poem.

Among the quirkier, funnier, more arcane devices—the hole saw, stud finder, miter board, and drill press of the wordsmith’s workbench—is today’s topic, the Oxymoron.

The word oxymoron is from the Greek words meaning sharp…dull. So the origin of the word itself is an oxymoron! An oxymoron might also be called a contradiction in terms, or a two-word paradox. We’ve all heard them:

civil war
pretty ugly
firewater
safety risk
lengthy brief

We could go on forever. It’s just one more way to make your writing a little…