www.kanetin.com

Most of us learned that similes were comparisons using the words “like” or “as” by second or third grade, so that’s all we’ll say on that section of our imagery toolbox.

Unless you’ve studied poetry or writing further, you may not be as familiar with the metaphor or poetry thread (aka extended metaphor).

Metaphor

In life, as in baseball, we must leave the dugout of complacency, step up to the home plate of opportunity, adjust the protective groin cup of caution and swing the bat of hope at the curve ball of fate, hoping that we can hit a line drive of success past the shortstop of misfortune, then sprint down the base path of chance, knowing that at any moment we may pull the hamstring muscle of inadequacy and fall face-first onto the field of failure, where the chinch bugs of broken dreams will crawl into our nose.

– Dave Barry

Above is a quote overflowing with metaphor. Even though he goes overboard for comedic effect, they are all fine examples of what a metaphor is.

Perfecting your use of metaphor is essential to writing in general, but in creating poetry it is imperative. A creative metaphor in a poem makes it sing like the angels and a poor one, or none at, all could have your poem falling flat and off key.

Example:

In life, as in baseball, we must leave the dugout of complacency (Dave Barry)

You can’t stay in the dugout - even though it’s nice and you’re happy there

Why use a metaphor, why not just say it like it is?

Well you could, and that might be your personal writing style, but a metaphor takes your reader on a tantalizing journey, riding your words as if they’re on the Orient Express. With it, you offer a bountiful feast for the eyes and the imagination rather than having a grilled cheese in a closet. Most readers enjoy using their minds like a tongue - wrapping it around your poem relishing the exploration in the taste of it all.

Weave a Deeper Meaning With Poetry Threads

A poetry thread, also known as an extended metaphor, takes a single metaphor and stretches it through a large section of, or the entire poem.

Imagine your poem is a quilt. Each square of fabric is a word and the stitches that hold them all together are your extended metaphor. This thread gently tugs your reader along through your piece and creates a deeper meaning and a more vivid picture within their mind

Start with a simple metaphor, let’s go with your puppy is a vehicle. Now here is an example of extending that metaphor:

My puppy is a car
that drives me quite insane.
When I’m ready for the parking garage
He’s revving for a freeway lane.

His engines roar whenever
he wants to go for a romp.
He races right on over me
before I can holler, “STOP!”

Notice how I’ve taken the metaphor and expanded on it? I’ve taken elements of driving (i.e. Parking garage, revving, engines, races, and freeway lane) and show the reader how on earth my puppy is a car.

I’ve used a silly example because they’re fun, but it works equally well in more serious poetry or even essays, fiction and more.

Whether you wrap your reader in a comforter, family heirloom quilt or itchy wool blanket, you’ve given them another dimension with which to embrace your work.

© 2006 Holly Bliss. All Rights Reserved. This document may be freely redistributed in its unedited form and on the condition that all copyright references are kept intact along with the hyperlinked URLs.

About the Author: Using her writing as paint on the canvas of her life, Holly Bliss is an eclectic writer, newsletter editor and an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writers.

Share This

Rogue Poetry

[Commentary] I’m not so young anymore, I seem to think I’ve recognized something that has escaped most of the modern age that perhaps most of us are people lost inside our own heads.

When I look at my past, it now seems to be akin to roads unprepared, rivers still with old levees, and fields full of weeds, and unplowed. I suppose you can say that of any new generation coming onto the sceneone feels they have not enough time to finish what they started before the new one takes over. It is indeed a pilgrimage to write about it, in plain terms.

Few people recognize the poets and writers I quote today, a few select perhaps dohere I shall lay bare the sleeping world, and bare my soul, perhaps the rogue in me will come out:

1) Tired Rogue Poet

I feel we are being closed in!

from all that I have seen.

I’m tired, otherwise I’d find

some hope I suppose: finished.

I am fifty-eight years of age;

year of the water-downed bird.

I am ill a lot of the time, my

mind is severed from my head

i noticed this a few nights ago
when I tired to go to bed.

#1021 12/23/2005

2) Eccentric Poet

Flesh and bonea

haunted mind;

i change with my moods,

my moods are my

weather.

I do not blame my mind

for my hallucinations

it’s all gossip that descends

on eccentric’s

descends from the heavens

or seeps up from hell!

#1022 12/05

3) The Butterfly and Me

When I’m walking,

whomever I’m talking to

(and it could be myself),

in the mist of madness

walking with, or at a

caf

Share This

Performance artists of all types enjoy the awe and the kudos coming their way from the general public. In return, any concert or performance turns livelier with audience participation. During the recent decades, more and more musicians–even those in the classical music field–have begun to encourage the audience to sing along or clap to the beat. This behavior has seeped out to other fields such as stand-up comedy and open-mic poetry readings.

With these facts in mind, I imagine, the slam poetry is succeeding because people are drawn into the magnetism of our clannish eras when everyone participated in the tribal dances, telling stories, and sing-along sessions. Truth is, I had not heard of “Slams” in regard to poetry, until–in the writing site I belong to–I started to participate in the slam poetry contests, hosted by two site members: one, a creative writing professor from Chicago and the other an English teacher/poet from Australia.

Later on, I found out that slam poetry was sometimes attacked by the academia with the idea that slams cheapen the true art of poetry. As an answer to this accusation, slam poets became more vocal and more organized to make themselves accepted as members of a serious performance media.

The first slam poetry started in 1984, in the Get Me High lounge, a Chicago jazz club, by a construction worker named Marc Smith. Two years later, Marc Smith offered a plan to another jazz club, the Green Mill. When the owner accepted Marc Smith’s plan of hosting a poetry competition for performance poets every Saturday night, the slam poetry competition was introduced to the public arena.

Although the opposition to the poetry slams still exists, slams have performed an impressive function in promoting poetry to the general public. During the later years, more poetry books have been sold and an astonishing number of searches about poetry have been conducted on the internet search engines.

Poetry slams are here to stay because they have pushed poetry into the livelier world of performance, turning it into an intense experience for both the poet-participants and the audience. The art of poetry too, when faced with detachment or worse yet extinction, has welcomed the slams, as if returning to its earliest origin of spoken words made to be heard.

A serious poetry slam, as performance poetry, does not depend on the quality of the words, lines, and the poetic devices alone. It also involves oral skills such as eye contact with the audience, emphatic reading, voice control, and controlled body language. This is because poetry slams are performed primarily for the audience entertainment. A slam is not the same as an open-mic performance since an open-mic is there to encourage the poets while the audience fares second.

Sometime ago, I was among the audience in an informal poetry slam. True, it felt akin to a vaudeville show, but the audience participation and the poets’ enjoyment were genuine. In an informal slam poetry contest, the judges are selected from among the audience and all forms of audience participation are encouraged, even booing the poets at the end or the middle of their poetry readings. If the audience is dissatisfied the poet leaves the stage; however, during the slam I watched nobody left the stage as the result of public booing. Probably, I was inside a quieter audience.

In the beginning, slam poetry used to be about specific subjects that involved public concerns like politics, baseball, social issues, etc. Afterwards, the themes and the subjects expanded in range immensely.

At present, poetry slams find worldwide fame due to the efforts of PSI or Poetry Slam Inc. and The National Poetry Slam or the annual slam championship tournament. During the first round of a serious slam competition, all entrants can read their poetry. The time period for each poem is three minutes. Poets are allowed to enter the succeeding rounds if they qualify. The judges’ scores are numerical from zero to ten.

In the beginning, this competition was for poets singly. Nowadays, poets compete in four or five persons in a team in their home states and countries from North America and Europe. The winning teams travel to a city hosting the final competition. Since most local public radios broadcast the competition live to their listeners, the annual National Poetry Slam has become a popular event.

Besides the National Poetry Slam, any community may organize special slams such as: Dead Poet Slams that is reading from the works of deceased poets; Cover Slams where poets read other poets’ works; Improv Slams where poets say whatever comes to their minds without previous preparation; Group-Poem Slams written by a group of poets instead of one; Haiku or Limerick Slams; and the very funny Bad Poem Slams or the Low-Ball Slams where the worst score wins.

Poetry slams are not a passing fad. Any form of entertainment that is grounded in imagination with its roots in art will surely endure excess showmanship or high-brow criticism. Poetry Slams and their organization Poetry Slam Inc. are here to stay in earnest.

Joy Cagil is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/
which is a site for Poetry Contests.
Her education is in linguistics and foreign languages. She has been involved with poetry all her life. Her portfolio can be found at http://www.Writing.Com/authors/joycag

Share This