RogetsI'm working on the second draft of my next book of poems and was back to using my old Thesaurus (my copy looks like the one far left).

This got me to thinking about how I use different kinds these days and which ones are better than others.

The big black one to the left is the copy my dad bought me when I was about 16 years old and needed one for writing poems in high school. Definitely this one is the best and not because it has the most words. I suppose electronic versions probably have 85-95% of the same words.

The book version is better because it forces you to scan over so many other words before you get to the word you're trying to find.

I do some composing in Microsoft Word: essays and quick poems like the ones I've done for NaPoWriMo. In these situations you need a very quick and efficient thesaurus. You don’t have time for the big black book. You are less particular.

When I am looking for something more particular, I'll use the online site Rhyme Zone.  I use this site primarily for finding rhymes quickly. But it also has a thesaurus. I'll go here if MS Word fails me.

But the best poems get the big book. This book is musky, dog-eared and pieces of the paperback cover have fallen off. The strength of the book is all about the detour. Using the book slows you down. This gives you time to think more about your missing word. You constantly bump into alternate words. You're quickly judging all the other words in the vicinity.

Great poems are made by detours. The irony of poetry is that poems are not about efficiency. They're about what the detours help you find.