Poetry Mini-Lessons
Among the many techniques the poet uses, some of the most important are imagery, metaphoric language, and rhythm.
I. Imagery
In simple terms, imagery is language that appeals to our 5 senses. Effective imagery conjures up an experience in a way that seems visceral, real, almost tangible. For example, the words idea, relationship, history, and spiritual do not act directly on the senses. They are vague, general, and abstract. The words velvet, tomato, salty, hissed, and musty appeal to a variety of senses. They are rich, specific, and evocative. That isn’t to say that every word you select for a poem must be concrete and imagistic. But sensory words heighten the experience for the reader. Take, for example, the following poem:
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.breaking. / When In A Ballad of Remembrance (1962), the line between these two lines reads: "and smell the iron and velvet bloom of heat." While this line was deleted, the version in A Ballad of Remembrance is still a sonnet. There are other variants between both versions; mostly relating to where the line breaks.
Whenbreaking. / When In A Ballad of Remembrance (1962), the line between these two lines reads:"and smell the iron and velvet bloom of heat." While this line was deleted, the version in A Ballad of Remembrance is still a sonnet. There are other variants between both versions; mostly relating to where the line breaks. the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who hadwho had In A Ballad of Remembrance: who’d driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austereaustere Grave, sober; and lacking adornment and lonely offices?
--Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.breaking. / When In A Ballad of Remembrance (1962), the line between these two lines reads: "and smell the iron and velvet bloom of heat." While this line was deleted, the version in A Ballad of Remembrance is still a sonnet. There are other variants between both versions; mostly relating to where the line breaks.
When breaking. / When In A Ballad of Remembrance (1962), the line between these two lines reads:"and smell the iron and velvet bloom of heat." While this line was deleted, the version in A Ballad of Remembrance is still a sonnet. There are other variants between both versions; mostly relating to where the line breaks. the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had who had In A Ballad of Remembrance: who’d driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austereaustere Grave, sober; and lacking adornment and lonely offices?
Circle the words that appeal to your senses, and identify which sense for each. Choose one, and explain the effect of the word on you, the reader.
Exercise: For each word that follows, add one or more words with sensory appeal. For example, for the first word, you might write a chilly silence or a shattering silence.
silencewind
skyscraperdog
sunmirror
skystorm
II. Metaphoric Language
Good verse is a little like good perfume–all the unnecessary parts have been discarded, the scent has been refined and balanced, and all that is left is the purest essence. Metaphoric language is what allows poets to write so economically but still pack a punch. Metaphor is like a universal shorthand. The best metaphors give the reader a sense of recognition (“Hey, I know exactly how she’s feeling!”) without relying on clichés. For example, saying you had a lightbulb moment may be a good way to express that you had an idea, but it’s been overused to the point of cliché. Good metaphors should be fresh, even unexpected. But they should still make sense. Consider these:
“Turtle”Excerpt from “A Lady”
Time-wornMy vigor is a new-minted penny;
A walking stoneWhich I cast at your feet.
He waits for tomorrow
While pondering the changing world--Amy Lowell
Watching
--Ken Lohmann
“Fog”Excerpt from “The Waning Moon”
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
--Carl Sandburg
Exercise:Try writing fresh similes and/or metaphors based on each of the following:
Umbrellas popping up during a sudden rainstorm
A friend who burst angrily into your room
A green Volkswagen Beetle with pink and yellow daisies pasted on it
An ambulance speeding through traffic with its siren wailing
A skyscraper, the top of which is lost in the fog
Your boyfriend or girlfriend sitting in a chair, daydreaming
The sound of someone typing in the next apartment
The gruff voice of someone awakened by a wrong telephone number
III. Rhythm & Punctuation
Free verse poem does not have a rhyme scheme, nor does it have a predictable meter. That does not mean, however, that it has no rhythm. Poetry is an auditory art form, meant to be heard as well as read on the page.
Some prose writers are fascinated by rhythm as well, but in much of the prose we read on a daily basis, the writer is not particularly concerned with the “music” of the language. But when you read free verse, you can often hear, almost feel, a lilt or swing that you don’t feel in prose. Take, for example, the following poem:
Words on a Windy Day
Airing out the clothes,
the odor of mothballs
driving me inside,
I watch in wonder
as the wind fills
the trouserlegs and sweaters,
whips them light and dark
in that frayed coat
I courted her a year.
in that old jacket,
married her, then brushed
her tears off with a sleeve.
The wind blows through them,
tosses them about,
these mildewed ghosts of love.
That life, for lack of something
simple as a clothespin,
let fall, one by one.
--Lucien Stryk
If you listen, you can hear the rhythm, the lilt and the swing of the words. Even if the lines had been written as prose, they would still be rhythmical. Of course, form and punctuation also play a part in how you read this poem, and even how the poem looks on the page. The poem itself looks as if it’s being tossed in the wind like laundry on a clothesline. But more on form later…
“I believe every space and comma is a living part of the poem and has its function, just as every muscle and pore of the body has its function. And the way the lines are broken is a functioning part essential to the life of the poem.” –Denise Levertov
Exercise: Take the prose excerpt below, and rewrite it with spacing and punctuation that you think enhances the rhythm of the poem.
How beautifully that kite soars up to the sky from the small boy's hand
We sit in silence while sirens pass below us and pretend they are only taxicabs to the sky.
IV. Pulling it all together: Now that you’ve gotten to test drive the tools of the poet’s trade, create an original poem about poetry or writing (or not) that starts off with a strong simile or metaphor. In your poem, I expect you to use sensory details, metaphoric language, and punctuation and line breaks that enhance the rhythm. Try to make your poem at least 12 lines. Examples:
A
poem
can play
with the wind,
and dart and dance,
and fly about in the mind
like a kite in the cloudy white
sky at so dizzy a height it
seems out of reach but
is waiting to be,
very gently,
pulled
down
to
the
page
below
by a
string
of
musical
words