Diction I: The Paradox of Feeling - Paperback

What happens to a feeling when narrative is removed?

Diction I: The Paradox of Feeling approaches emotion not as confession but as structure. Organized as a constrained dictionary, each entry begins with a single noun-Alienation, Ambition, Shame, Desire-and unfolds through a concrete image drawn from the physical world. A final imperative line follows, compressing the word into action.

The book is divided into five movements-Friction, Fusion, Fracture, Force, and Echo-tracing how language behaves under pressure. Rather than interpreting emotion, these poems isolate it, testing its tensile strength against matter: glacier, piston, wolf, avalanche, spark.

There are no explanatory notes. No narrative framing. No metaphor offered as shortcut. Each page functions as a closed linguistic field in which diction, structure, and constraint generate force.

Part of the Diction series, Diction I will appeal to readers of contemporary formal poetry, students of poetics, and writers interested in the mechanics of language under constraint.