poetry exercises

[slb2]

I'm in a funk. To pull myself out, I'm going to get something going here, but 7-y.o. just stapled his thumbs so I've got to manage the spurting blood....

hang on!
(she says to herself)

[booklady]

I read this on Gather the other day, and printed it out, but I've been in prose mode, not poetry, so I haven't done anything with it.

Read on, and try, maybe.....
(Stolen from Edward Nudelman. If you want to enter his contest, you can find his entering instructions on his Gather article, which was featured over there in the Book Essentials group.)

Metaphors help us understand comparisons, nuances, shades of meaning, contrasting

thoughts, and many other aspects of our thinking and feeling. They do it in an almost

mysterious way. You may not notice a good metaphor, as such, but rather be pulled

into its captivating spell. One of the earliest surviving examples of metaphor is

found in the Epic of Gilgmaesh, a Babylonian poem dating to the third millennium,

B.C. Here we find the following striking metaphor:


My friend, the swift mule, fleet wild ass of the mountain, panther

of the wilderness, after we joined together and went up into the

mountain, fought the Bull of Heaven and killed it, and overwhelmed

Humbaba, who lived in the Cedar Forest, now what is this sleep

that has seized you? - (Trans. Kovacs, 1989)


The writer compares his friend with a swift mule, not only to provide an instant

paradox (swift mule) but aslo to draw out how one with physical limitations might

be able to war against the “Bull of Heaven.” Thus, the metaphor allows us to step

outside of the restrictions of probability, and enter into a world of endless possibility.

This enriches our imagination. It can also offer challenges to reading and interpretation.


There are metaphors... and then there are metaphors. Tough ones, like “the sinister alabaster

bivalve that opens and closes like a lever, has already shut itself up for ages to come.”

In truth, this gem was devised by yours truly as an example of overdoing it. Thus, it does

no good to build a complicated edifice of metaphorical sounding words, if it begins to topple

over on the weight of its own silliness.


When you use metaphors, be simple and unassuming in your speech. Don’t mix them all up

in your ardor, as “the poet was charged like a stick of dynamite as words rolled out as oats.”

Begin to think in terms of overarching ideas, rather than just a few isolated series of words

that you can stick in a poem, here and there, to fill up a metaphor quota.


One of my favorite examples of a metaphor comes from one of Dylan Thomas’ most haunting

and illusory poems:


Where once the waters of your face

Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows,

The dead turns up its eye;

Where once the mermen through your ice

Pushed up their hair, the dry wind steers

Through salt and root and roe.


Where once your green knots sank their splice

Into the tided cord, there goes

The green unraveller,

His scissors oiled, his knife hung loose

To cut the channels at their source

And lay the wet fruits low.


Invisible, your clocking tides

Break on the lovebeds of the weeds;

The weed of love’s left dry;

There round about your stones the shades

Of children go who, from their voids,

Cry to the dolphined sea.


Dry as a tomb, your coloured lids

Shall not be latched while magic glides

Sage on the earth and sky;

There shall be serpents in your tides,

Till all our sea-faith die.


You can instantly see and appreciate the beauty of this very simple metaphor, that of comparing a face to water (sea). From this humblest of beginnings, the poem expands in many directions, giving us a startling impression of the mutability ("where once," repeated) and corruptible nature ("dry ghost blows", "dry wind steers") of what was once attractive. And how easy to recognize and enter into the metaphor, when we have so many points of commonality in our own experience of the sea ("green weeds", "dolphins"), as well as darker images ("ice", "salt", "root", "tomb"). Thomas builds upon his metaphor with the tension of lost beauty and love, culminating midway with the monumental phrase, “The weeds of love’s left dry.” We are directed to see how great the fall is, out of love, how “dry as a tomb” and full of serpents.


Assignment


1) Write a 8-14 line poem that picks up a metaphor and carries it through as in the example above.



2) Find a quiet spot in your house (or Starbucks with your IPOD set to Vivaldi) and make some notes. Think about some event that either happened to you personally, or one that affected you in a very strong way. Jot down some impressions about it. Be as specific as you can. When did it happen? Who was involved? What were the key images that struck you at the time, that strike you now?



How did it make you feel? How long did the feelings last? Did you do anything about the situation? Did it change the way you thought about things at the time? Did it have a permanent effect on you?


3) The next step may be the most difficult and perhaps most important step in this exercise. Has anything jumped out off your page of notes and shouted to you, metaphor? Did you suddenly scream with your earplugs in your ears, “Daisies…!” and are now trying to figure out how to relate it to a car accident?



I hope not. Or maybe that would be a fun poem. Anyway, you may have to sit there until something comes up. Think about how you might start a poem using a metaphor to illustrate the event or impression you’ve been thinking about. Maybe it was a very embarrassing situation at your job that ballooned into a soul-wrenching nine months of self-doubt and despondency. Is it like a ship that entered a storm and became ripped apart by rocks near the shore (I realize this is a trite example, but you get the idea!).


4) As you write your poem, see if you can be “true” to the metaphor all the way through. Don't water it down by bringing in other metaphors. Find points of commonality and contrast between the thing you're trying to write about and the metaphor you've chosen. Don’t worry too much about trying to make it exotic or complicated. Simplicity usually works best.


5) A few words about form. I’m not requiring it, but I’d like to have you try to be as “free” as possible in this poem, which will give you latitude to explore the use of metaphor. Therefore, please don’t use any rhyme, and although I’d like you to pay close attention to the flow and rhythm, it’s not necessary to have a particular meter (i.e 10 beats per line, etc.)


6) Finally, try to end the poem with a little flair. Is there some way to accentuate or punctuate the theme of the poem in your metaphor? You can do this in many ways, such as introducing irony or surprise in the ending. You can call attention to something within the poem and bring it out into an entirely different light. You can use humor or remorse at the very end to hammer home a message. I just ask you to think about finding an ending that leaves the poem in the reader’s mind. You’ll know it when you find it.

[booklady]

P.S. I hope 7-y.o.'s thumbs are OK.

[slb2]

His thumb is fine, thanks for checking.

A word about Nudelman's article. It leaves me feeling like I've just watched a magician reveal all the secrets. Sorry. His directions are too explicit for me. If I'm going to be lead by my nose I prefer it to be by the scent in the air and not the bull-ring crushed through the septum.

But if I just ignore all his sincere advice and focus on the bare assignment, that might do something for me.

[booklady]

That's right. Big picture girl.

[booklady]

Fourth Outfielder
by Bookie

I'm a journeyman player
I go team to team
Never in one place long
Always wake from the dream

I lead off each season
Thinkin' now I belong
But my hat's barely broke in
'Fore I know I was wrong

The managers love me
I know I've got fans
But nothin' is lasting
'cept changin' my plans

Guy wants me to bunt
When power's my game
Or the roster's revamping
For the latest big name

They say to play shallow
And then they say deep
I've run into the wall
And crashed in a heap

Sometimes I been injured
And played through the pain
I've swung in the heat
And I've K'd in the rain

I just keep on playin'
Hopin' someday I'll fit
That I'll dig in at the plate
I'll scratch and I'll spit

And look out at the field
And know I belong
But I'm a journeyman player
I'll be movin' along.

[slb2]

(Just stretching here.)

I Won't Tell

I won't tell my mother
how my right hip hurts

even when I'm only sitting
still, yet there's an ache.

Spring, four years ago,
my mother lost

her first daughter who
complained of an aching hip

riddled with cancer.
I won't tell my father

that I become short of breath
when walking upstairs

to collect dirty underwear
and half-eaten heroes

from under the boys' beds.
He was four years younger

when he buried his black-haired
daughter under the maple tree.

We don't mention lung cancer
or chemotherapy or radiation anymore.

I won't tell anyone
that I've seen an oncologist

who regretted to tell me
I'd jettisoned into stage four

before I even knew
that it was my turn.

[gailkate]

Lord, slb2, that's quite a stretching exercise. Thanks for tipping us off.

I'm no poet but will be glad to watch you both play with your talent. However, I'm not seeing extended metaphors. Are you going to write with occasional natural use of metaphor? I hope so, because I never have gotten half of what Thomas wrote and think Nudelman might be wrong about his interpretation, but who's to know as Thomas was probably drunk.

[booklady]

Maybe Nudelman's off his noodle.

Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, but isn't the baseball player an extended metaphor?

I actually did not write my poem to fulfill the assignment. For one thing, the rhyme came tumbling out. I didn't go looking for it. And it's longer than Nudelman wanted. I just wanted to write something.

[rogesgallery]

Who am I?
Here I guess
And roges, here I guess
But what is this roges meta for?

Roger that, in other places
And sometime here
When the virtual spaces
In friendship drift closer

Brother Uncle Friend and Father
Once I was "What the heck are you doin with my daughter"
Sometimes I dont know who I am
Or what this meta roges is for

I am... The need to participate
roges

[rogesgallery]

Thanks for the oppourtunity Susan!

[Jane]

The smoke still rises.
Over Aushwitz, Bergen-Belsen.
The names haunt us still.
Smoke rising like prayers or hope, like memory.
The smoke still rises over Cambodia and Laos.
Green forests turned to smoke.
The smoke rises over Iwo Jima and Dresden.
Rises like hope.
The smoke rises over Dafur,
burned villages and bodies,
rising in smoke.
The smoke rises over Basra.
The smoke rises still above New York,
rises like prayer or memory.
THe smoke rises over Takrit.
Below, the haters, rabid feed the fire
feed it with hatred and fear,
feed it with talk of victory.
They warm their hands on the flames.
And the smoke still rises.
Like hope.
Or prayers.
Like memory.

[rogesgallery]

Youch, Yes jane the need to participate takes many forms. Very Powerful.

Very extrospective Booky, unless you are really a player posing as a spectator. Your secrets safe with me. Your piece makes me wonder at the loosness of metaphor. I wonder is every noun a metaphor for something else. This might seem like a simple muse but forgive me I am not an educated man and this a form I haven't explored. So does a metaphor need to be explicit or can it merely be imlied as in the journeyman player.

Susan? my sincere hope is that your pain will pass with time but until it does it makes for some vivid poetry which is revealing in its tale of continued sorrow.

[booklady]

rogesgallery said:

Very extrospective Booky, unless you are really a player posing as a spectator. Your secrets safe with me. Your piece makes me wonder at the loosness of metaphor. I wonder is every noun a metaphor for something else. This might seem like a simple muse but forgive me I am not an educated man and this a form I haven't explored. So does a metaphor need to be explicit or can it merely be imlied as in the journeyman player.

Well, I am new at writing poetry. Does this mean it's a crappy and obvious poem, or OK even if obvious? Does it work? Was it a waste of my time and anyone who read it? I'm used to writing prose, so I'm a bit out of my element writing poetry. I wrote another one tonight but sent it to Susan first for comments before braving the cold cruel public.

[booklady]

Metaphor - a comparison between two unlike things without using "like" or "as." So "I'm a journeyman player," if one is not, would seem to be a metaphor, just like "The sun is a balloon" would be. But one of our real poets can tell us for sure!!

[rogesgallery]

Booky! Do I detect a smattering of self concious testiness. I have always loved the flow and direction of your poetry. I have also always taunted your love of Baseball. Has something changed that would make me less your first friend?

[gailkate]

Ok, the old English teacher will try to explain. I didn't mean at all to sound critical of either poem. I was impressed and meant to say so.

The broadest category of poetic techniques used to be called "figurative language." I don't know what it's called now. It encompassed a number of techniques such as simile, metaphor, symbol, and analogy. All are important and effective. I think your poem, BL, was an analogy. You weren't writing an extended metaphor according to my understanding because in a metaphor, the unlike things must be truly unlike ("I'm {like} a balloon"). You and another human being are not unlike, even though you have different occupations. But your poem about the journeyman player is rich with meaning. It could speak to many of us about our own struggles, not just about you. That's what makes a poem worth reading many times.

Slb's poem puts herself in her sister's place, lives again the pain and loss not only for the sufferer but all who love her. To me it also says that death is not an ending. We don't get over it, we relive it and try to make sense of it. Why not me?

But I could be completely off-base about both poems because I'm not perceptive enough. And I haven't even tried to respond to Jane's. Roges gives us playful relief while being very respectful. I'm sorry if I didn't sound respectful. Sometimes I say something too quickly because I want to encourage whatever is going on so people will know they're being read and not skipped over.

[slb2]

gk, I love constructive feedback. I read again this whole thread to try to discern where you might have been critical. Missed it the second read-through as well.

My thoughts on these poems: unfortunately, I don't have any reference for what a journeyman's player is. That was the only snag for me with bookie's poem. You really have a strength in poetry writing bookie. A nice, polished feel.

Jane used one of my favorite techniques of anaphora while also playing with the meaning of the word "smoke." Plus, I adore poetry that includes history. I'm always impressed when writers dare to tackle big subjects. (although little subjects delight as well. I'm a big fan of Billy Collins.)

Roges piece was a play with words and comfortable meandering through his inner thoughts, that's always a pleasurable journey.

My poem had nothing to do with the challenge put forth by bookie. It was something on my mind and spilled out as a first draft. I'm not likely to do much with it as it was really to clear my head before writing something by design.

[booklady]

rogesgallery said:

Booky! Do I detect a smattering of self concious testiness. I have always loved the flow and direction of your poetry. I have also always taunted your love of Baseball. Has something changed that would make me less your first friend?

Rogeeee, baby! No, you did not detect testiness. The failure of my written word. I was, however, as we say in Bahston arear, wicked tahrd. Maybe that made me less than capable of making myself understood. I was wondering, not crabbing.

[booklady]

gailkate said:

I think your poem, BL, was an analogy. You weren't writing an extended metaphor according to my understanding because in a metaphor, the unlike things must be truly unlike ("I'm {like} a balloon"). You and another human being are not unlike, even though you have different occupations.

Gail, I was asleep before nine last night but then woke up at midnight and spent an hour so tossing around before going back to sleep. While thinking during that time, I came to the same conclusions. Thanks for your thoughts here. It helps to have your perspective.

[booklady]

I threw the metaphor idea out there because it was fresh in my mind, having just read it. But it's slb's poetry exercises thread, so I'd like to see what she'd give us for an assignment.

[slb2]

I know, I know. I'm working like the dickens to come out of my seasonal valley. Lent helps because it imposes discipline, which is sorely lacking in my life the other 46 weeks of the year.

[Jane]

I have a terrible time writing poetry because I love it so, and my own infrequent efforts fall so short. But anything that takes us out of our comfort zone has to be good, right? (Well, maybe not. Murder, for one.)

I always used to hate it when I was teaching English and some angst-ridden teen would tenderly place their poem in my hands and ask me what I thought. Since they were almost always really bad (no capital letters and lots of rhymes like "heart" and "apart" and "die" and "cry"), I was hard pressed as to how to respond. Should I tell them the truth or allow their bad, bad poetry to continue unabated? (I always settled for a kind lie.)

I've been impressed by the poetry here, so I don't need to tell kind lies.

[gailkate]

Lord, Jane, so painfully true. I will never forget this:

I saw a kitten
in a field
where I lay
sleeping

How to explain that chopping a sentence into bits doesn't make it poetry? How to explain that, if you're trying to be profound, you must have something to say?

[slb2]

I've learned so much from my poetry instructor/mentor. During class, we'd workshop others' poems. Some of the students were very confined in their writing. Yet John (Minczeski) would alway be able to find parts of it that worked into positive comments.

//I saw a kitten
in a field
where I lay
sleeping//

In this poem, a first person narrative, we see the author suggesting multiple sensations. Sleeping in a field isn't normally something that most adults would find comfortable, but a kitten brings a softness to the poem, brings something desireable into the picture.

Also, the reader is surprised because the poet said he saw something and yet was sleeping. Is the kitten a dream? Or is something else being suggested? If I were the author or this poem, I would want to take it several steps further and investigate the idea of seeing something while sleeping. Maybe make use of a similie and an even stronger contrast than kitten and field.

======

See how much fun it can be to create commentary? ;D

[gailkate]

High fives to slb2!

[slb2]

merci, ma amie!

(I'm really working on my radio show that airs, live, tomorrow evening, but I keep peeking over here.)

[booklady]

slb, I've got some student journals for you to correct and comment upon. I'll Fed Ex them over to you.

(re Lent: My husband is eating a big bowl of sirloin tips in garlic ginger sauce over noodles. Meanie.)

[booklady]

OK, this does not use any kind of metaphor, extended or otherwise, but I wrote it as an exercise, so here goes:

Pool Cue

You let him break,
standing back to watch
(and I watched, too)
his lean lithe attention to
the white ball.

Then a sharp crack!
And he had the stripes,
You solid.

Cue sticks slid back and forth
Carefully aimed to the
Romance of "Moonlight Serenade"
From the jukebox.
The game shifting in his favor,
In yours.

The light cast down on
the green softness
a nervous brightness,
muted above by the amber
orange red and pale green
glass shade.

After you won,
We drove home, still new
With each other.
"I wanted to beat him,"
you said,
"because you'd slept with him."

----------

or should it be:

Pool Cue

You let him break,
standing back to watch
(and I watched, too)
his lean lithe attention to
the white ball.

Then a sharp crack!
And he had the stripes,
You solid.

Cue sticks slid back and forth
Carefully aimed to the
Romance of "Moonlight Serenade"
From the jukebox.
The game shifting in his favor,
In yours.

The light cast down on
the green softness
a nervous brightness,
muted above by the amber
orange red and pale green
glass shade.

After you won,
We drove home, still new
With each other.
"I wanted to beat him,"
you said,
"because you'd slept with him."

I didn't think you did,
but you knew.

---------

Which version is better?

[juliastar]

It's a nice poem, BL. Since you asked, I liked the first better. It would be a startlingly honest admission to be voiced from a guy. To take it a step further that he was speculating when he was that open would seem to be a stretch of credibility as to human nature (even if it is the god's honest truth about how it happened). But that's just my reaction. I've seen enough to know that what one reader LOVES, another thinks should be cut. So, you listen, but you ultimately decide. It is your name that goes on it.