Coaxing Poems 4: Abracadabra!

 

Hello again my dear Poetry Friends, and welcome to the fourth of ten little poetry visits starting off the New Year at The Poem Farm. In each of these short videos, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. You can find the earlier videos linked below and you may wish to watch those first:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

Visit 1: We Are Libraries

Visit 2: Eat the World

Visit 3: Make & Break a Pattern

And now I invite you to join me for Visit 4, Abracadabra!

Students - The whole world feels more interesting when we practice comparing various objects and feelings to different things we know in life. We find one way that two things are alike, tap our magic writing wands, and we turn one thing into another, right on the page. In this way, writing is magic. We see things anew, and we pass these surprising images on to our readers.

Here you can see the notebook page where I remembered some metaphors I have written before and came up with some new ones too. I have never written such a metaphor list in my notebook, but I think do this more often as I found it quite helpful.

Metaphor Notebook Page

Photo by Amy LV

Enjoy these two short, non-rhyming poems centered on metaphor, each comparing one thing to another. As a writer, it is my hope that each poem, even without a matching photo, will give readers a new way to see a familiar object.

When I was a little girl, I used to suck on lemons. Perhaps this is why I wished to write about citrus fruit. 

Orange Snack

Photo by Amy LV

The below poem, about my kitty Claude, focuses on just one object that I compare him to - a throw pillow. But truth be told, I compare Claude to many things. He is fast and quiet and hazy-furry, so sometimes I call him a ghost, and sometimes I call him a cloud. Perhaps I should make a page in my notebook for all of the different things I compare Claude to in the world.

Claude on the Couch

Photo by Amy LV

One last note to you about metaphors. You will read many metaphors in books and hear many people use metaphors in speech. Sometimes these are used so often that they lose their freshness. When I write in metaphor, I try not to use metaphors I have read or heard often, such as "He was a quiet mouse" or "Her anger was a thunderstorm." The work of a writer is to dig into our own strange and beautiful selves and find brand new ways of seeing old things. And when we come upon such a comparison...it is joyously surprising for our writing selves. We don't want our metaphors to be stale like week-old doughnuts.

In travel news, thank you so much to the Heights Elementary School community in Oakland, NJ for inviting me to visit this week. It was a joy to share some writing with you and to see the photographs of all of the projects you made with your own hands. I wish you much happiness in your own writing journeys.

Author Visit to Heights Elementary School

Photo by Librarian Stacy Contreras

Susan is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at Chicken Spaghetti with a new year piñata poem inspired by a news article. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Remember that you are a writing magician, and with a brilliant flash of your pen, you can turn one thing....into another. 

Poof!

xo,

Amy

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