Vocabulary from Stephen King's Favorite Poem

Learn 15 words from " Falling," by James Dickey. Stephen King just told The New York Times it's his favorite!

Describing the poem, King wrote: Published in 1967, its delirious language, coupled with a clear narrative, make it a precursor to Dickey’s novel “Deliverance,” published three years later. The poem is audacious, sensuous and completely beautiful. It’s also as neat a parable of the human condition as has ever been written."
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. chenille
    a soft tufted cord used in embroidery
    ... her hands and face warmed more and more by the air Rising from pastures of beans and under her under chenille bedspreads The farm girls are feeling the goddess in them struggle and rise brooding On the scratch-shining posts of the bed dreaming of female signs Of...
  2. layered
    with one thin piece on top of another
    ... the greatest thing that ever came to Kansas down from all Heights all levels of American breath layered in the lungs from the frail Chill of space to the loam where extinction slumbers in corn tassels thickly And breathes like rich farmers counting: will come along them...
  3. loam
    a rich soil consisting of sand, clay and organic materials
    ... down from all Heights all levels of American breath layered in the lungs from the frail Chill of space to the loam where extinction slumbers in corn tassels thickly And breathes like rich farmers counting: will come along them after Her last superhuman act the last slow careful...
  4. transcontinental
    spanning one of the large landmasses of the earth
    The states when they black out and lie there rolling when they turn
    To something transcontinental move by drawing moonlight out of the great
    One-sided stone hung off the starboard wingtip some sleeper next to
    An engine is groaning for coffee and there is faintly coming in
    Somewhere the vast beast-whistle of space.
  5. invulnerable
    immune to attack; impregnable
    ...at the best part of her brief goddess State to water gone in headfirst come out smiling invulnerable Girl in a bathing-suit ad but she is lying like a sunbather at the last Of moonlight half-buried in her impact on the...
  6. trestle
    a supporting tower used to support a bridge
    ...she is lying like a sunbather at the last Of moonlight half-buried in her impact on the earth not far From a railroad trestle a water tank she could see if she could Raise her head from her modest hole with her clothes beginning...
  7. starboard
    right side of a ship or aircraft to someone facing the bow
    The states when they black out and lie there rolling when they turn
    To something transcontinental move by drawing moonlight out of the great
    One-sided stone hung off the starboard wingtip some sleeper next to
    An engine is groaning for coffee and there is faintly coming in
    Somewhere the vast beast-whistle of space.
  8. goggle
    look with amazement
    ...has this flying-skin Made of garments and there are also those sky-divers on tv sailing In sunlight smiling under their goggles swapping batons back and forth And He who jumped without a chute and was handed one by a diving Buddy.
  9. plummet
    drop sharply
    ...for something to live With the streaming half-idea of a long stoop a hurtling a fall That is controlled that plummets as it wills turns gravity Into a new condition, showing its other side like a moon shining New Powers there...
  10. hurtle
    move with or as if with a rushing sound
    ...smothering chickens Huddle for over them there is still time for something to live With the streaming half-idea of a long stoop a hurtling a fall That is controlled that plummets as it wills turns gravity Into a new condition, showing its other side...
  11. contour
    a line drawn on a map connecting points of equal height
    Let her now take off her hat in summer air the contour Of cornfields and have enough time to kick off her one remaining Shoe with the toes of the other foot ...
  12. cleave
    separate or cut with a tool, such as a sharp instrument
    ...single homes lamps on barn roofs if she fell Into water she might live like a diver cleaving perfect plunge
  13. brooding
    deeply or seriously thoughtful
    ...Rising from pastures of beans and under her under chenille bedspreads The farm girls are feeling the goddess in them struggle and rise brooding On the scratch-shining posts of the bed dreaming of female signs Of the moon male blood like iron of what...
  14. emblem
    special design representing a quality, type, or group
    ...bed smile, understood in darkness can go away slant slide Off tumbling into the emblem of a bird with its wings half-spread Or whirl madly on herself in endless gymnastics in the growing warmth Of wheatfields rising toward the harvest moon....
  15. placid
    calm and free from disturbance
    ...by regulation her hat Still on her arms and legs in no world and yet spaced also strangely With utter placid rightness on thin air taking her time she holds it In many places and now, still thousands of feet from...
Created on Wed Dec 23 11:06:18 EST 2015 (updated Wed Dec 23 11:07:36 EST 2015)

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