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I've always said, usually in the scope of haiku, that specificity combats dullness. there's a dimension of reality that's often more satisfying than poetic license. but saying a red-petaled flower has blue ones could be an interesting move in a poem. just saying KS On 25/03/2008, Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I've got a poem going that, currently, suffers from 'nominal fallacy'! > I don't know if 'nominal fallacy' was on that original list with 'pathetic fallacy' and all the others. But I have been wrong twice so far on getting the name right on this plant/flower combination and I don't want to risk further embarrassment. > First I put 'lavender blue' pedals on a bottle-brush plant. Only to find it was not a bottle-brush because it was pointed out that such plants only have 'red spiky flowers'. > Second time through I put 'lilac blue' flowers a ceanothus plant. Which is accurate to such a plant, but it was not the plant. Thank you, Google, for the correcting image!. > This morning I found the plant with other such plants - some had raspberry and others had deep blue petals (on vertical 6 to 12 inch spiral, flowering 'branches '.) I asked a passerby. Ten minutes later she came back in her car. "My husband says it called a 'Candle of Madera' ." Indeed the multiple flowering plant looked like an inverted candelabra. > However, nowhere to be found on Google! > I and my poor, nominally compromised poem will appreciate an accurate report from a knowledgeable green thumb - if there is one on the premises? > > Thanks in advance, and, as a reward, I will be happy to send a copy of the repaired poem, even post the corrected version on my blog. I would post a jpeg of the culprit on my blog, but the worn-out camera went in for much need repair. > > Honestly, perhaps like Spicer, I am trying real hard to put the real flower in a real poem! > > Stephen V > http://stephenvincent.net/blog/ >