Monday, September 24, 2012

Flames are Horses - Metaphors

Heat


 
Click the arrow to hear me read this poem to you.

Students - Here you can see another partnership between Diane Mayr and me. I regularly participate in Amy Souza's SPARK, a regular way for artists, musicians, and writers to share work and inspire each other.  This is a poem that I wrote quite a while ago, and I have come back to it again and again...making changes here and there.  Diane's art above was inspired by today's poem, and I think that the way she layered words and images over each other is just hauntingly lovely.

Sometimes we all look at objects or places and think, "This looks just like...."  or "This makes me think of...."    or "This is a...."  When we compare two things in such a way, we are thinking metaphorically, allowing one thing to become something else in our minds.  In today's poem, you can see that the flames really do become horses: galloping, cantering, riding night, leaving hoof prints.  That is so because in this poem, I wanted to hold one comparison in my hand (flames are horses) and carry it all of the way through every stanza.

You might wish to try this sometime. Stare around the room you sit in right now, or out of your bus window, or into the night sky.  Does something make you think about something else?  Is the connection strong enough that you might weave a whole poem around it?  Your class might like to try this together first.  If you do, please let me know!

Our other pairing (with Diane's photograph inspiring my poem) is posted here at SPARK, and I also posted it last Poetry Friday. I thank Diane for our collaboration and look forward to SPARK 18!

Today is National Punctuation Day!  Here are a few poems from the archives to help you celebrate: Inky Flyers, Emily Apostrophe, and Nolan the Colon.

This week over at my other blog, Sharing Our NotebooksBarry Lane shares his notebooks and offers a generous giveaway of two of his books about writing and a CD.  A winner will be drawn on Sunday, September 30...the beginning of Banned Books Week!

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3 comments:

  1. Thanks for featuring my work, today! It is amazing what one can do with photo manipulation software. In case anyone is interested, I currently use a free online program called Pic Monkey.

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  2. Beautiful words holding hands with the art, Amy. I love that you wrote this a long while ago & kept working at it until just the right moment. The rhythm is wonderfully trotting through the words, reminds me of an old nursery rhyme, but I can't quite remember it-something like 'gallop a gallop, we go and we go' and so on. Maybe it's just something my mother made up for me. But I loved "hearing" your poem. Thanks to Diane for the visual response too. Lovely pairing.

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