|
NEXUS POEMS:
Poems that Chronicle the Connection to Everyday Things
Aristotle said that the creation of metaphor was a sign of genius because it was the
recognition of the connection between apparently dissimilar things. For readers of
poems, seeing new connections is one of the greatest rewards. So in our poetry workshops,
we want to experiment with metaphor to look for valuable connections.
Consider the poem below. It has anaphora
and simile. You should easily recognize the comparisons of pomegranates to
Christmas bulbs. Less obvious will probably be the metaphorical language of "The
peels gaping...."
Sliding from Seeds
In the windbreak along the avocado grove,
pomegranates brush against the coyote’s fur,
forgotten even by him
as he trots through the bushes
and puts his paws on the tree limbs to reach the lobes of golden green.
The red globes not as shiny as Christmas bulbs.
Their peels spilt in ecstasy, showing hundreds of bloody teeth.
Ah, they stain these Santa Ana winds!
Don’t deny the juice and leave the
pomegranates on the branches for crows,
or order a mai tai or tequila sunrise
and watch the bartender pour in grenadine ribbons.
Taste the juice as it slides from the fiery seed.
Let your mouth gape with the bloody rain from a kiss.
Another connection you might make is between the pomegranate's
conclusion in the mouth and its origins in the rain. There is a nexus between what
we consume and where it comes from. The link here is not necessarily the link of genius
but the astonishing link of a process many of us have forgotten or overlooked, a process
that nourishes and, in effect, kisses us.
THE EXERCISE
Consider all the things around you: the bricks in the wall, the glass in the window,
the paper this page is made of. Choose something that interests you, and ask your self,
"Where did this come from?" See if you can trace it back to its origins, listing
words as you go. Use concrete/image/picture words. What are some of the plants, birds,
animals, or people in its place of origin? Are there any similarities between the place of
origin and the place where the thing is used? If so, write them out as similes or
metaphors.
Write a poem that shows the reader the common thing in its place of origin and then
links it to our everyday use. Feel free to make a simile qualified by a slight difference,
such as, "The red globes not as shiny as Christmas bulbs." Also feel free
to exclaim in true awe, as in "Ah, this stain on the Santa Ana winds!"
Once you show the object at its beginnings, show the object as it is usually seen, and
somewhere in the poem, direct the reader to the connection between the thing's ordinary
use and its origins.
THE OBJECTIVE
Sometimes students give up too soon on a good idea. By following the process of
cultivation and consumption, students have a plot that stretches their observations
and--with some luck--makes an astonishing connection.
STUDENT EXAMPLES
| Old Nail It feels sharp and cold in my hand.
Made in a factory were machines clash and clang.
Burned in fire,
then bellows like the wind,
like a lion’s roar, came and blew it out,
the fire like a day in Hell, burning, raving, killing.
Oh, rusty, worn nail!
You held up palaces, hotels, buildings.
Now you sit in my hand, silent, still,
quiet like Death Valley.
Oh nail, like a wise old man, then forgotten like a moment,
at last lost like a memory.
Rachel Paarman
4th Grade, San Pasqual Union |
Diamonds
It was molded in the molten mother.
It was under the world above.
It gleams shinier than light,
it’s walls reflecting the rainbow.
The hot, sweaty, unforgiving chamber.
Oh, the pressure of the world’s weight.
I don’t want you just to wear it.
I don’t want you just to flaunt it.
I want you to travel below
where the chamber walls steam, and
the diamonds mold.
I want you to experience far from society.
I want you to nurture your sight of molten mother,
like a protégé.
Alison Gabriel
Grade 12, Scripps Ranch High |
| The Worn Sky
The full electric-blue moon
lights the field below.
The bowls of cotton shine
like blinding stars on the earth.
I stand amidst the radiance,
my midnight-blue jeans up-lit by the ground,
iridescence shimmers up my new skin.
The fields continue to flow and wave into mid-day
when the sun burns the cotton dusty brown.
The dirty cream strings worn from the hem of my jeans
stroke my leathery feet as
they slide along the dusty clay of the earth.
I am wearing the old and used cotton blue sky.
Laura Rose Dutkiewicz
Grade 12, Scripps Ranch High |
Samba, Samba
It was born in a dirty favela shack
crowded next to another,
outside a Brazilian city
on one of those hills that bears no name,
fathered by the hands of an unknown drunk
and baptized by child’s tears,
then stolen from an unsung musician and
the river of poverty took it away.
Upon your hands this song now lays
pleading to drum its unfamiliar beats,
dying to tell the sufferings of its people.
As it sits upon your unknowing hands,
don’t play its sacred rhymes once or twice,
corrupting it as if it were one of your foreign songs,
for it was made to tell the common
story of a poor man’s life
through a sambista’s chanting voice.
Paula Encarnacao
Grade 10, Scripps Ranch High |
|