Exactitude

"The poet of vagueness can only be the poet of exactitude, who is able to grasp the subtlest sensations with eyes and ears and quick unerring hands."

Exactitude, to me, has a multitude of synonyms: precise, clear, focused, specific, concise, ect. For Calvino, exactitude is the presentation of precise, memorable images that leave the reader with the exact meaning intended. No loquacious ramblings that circle around the point like a lazy vulture, for Calvino. To make a memorable statement, one must be direct. Some might see the necessity of being exact as uncreative and restricted but, on the contrary, exactitude presents a multitude of opportunities for creativity in your word choice, sentence structure, and expression of thoughts and ideas.

The illustration of the flowers is the embodiment of exactitude in my mind because only one flower is in focus. The photographer deliberately zeroed in on that single flower for a reason and he made that apparent by fading all the others into the background.