Poet's Workshop

photo by Gerry Williams

Poet's Workshop Presents: Figure Enhancement Anyone? On Honing the writing Scalpel by Terrie Leigh Relf ©2003 All rights reserved

Poetry Submissions Update:
At this point, the featured poet slots are filled through December 2003. While I'm still open to submissions, the first available slots begin with our January 2004 issue. Thank you for your patience in this-and all other-matters.

A fellow poetry editor, whose name and zine shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons, asked me to write a column on the use and abuse of similes, metaphors, and clichés in poetry.

First, some definitions.

Similes and metaphors hail from the category of figurative language. Both make use of comparison, with the difference being that a simile usually uses the words, "like" or "as" to denote this comparison, while a metaphor will equate one object with another-as if it IS that object, thus imbued with all, or some, of its qualities.

For example, to create a simile, you might write: "Tarn drinks like an ocelot." If Tarn were an ostrich, then this would be a simile. However, if Tarn is an ocelot, then this would not be a simile because you're comparing him to other ocelots that most likely have recognizable and species-specific drinking patterns. Unless, of course, you have a pet ocelot that you've trained to drink out of a champagne flute like a human.

If you wanted to create a metaphor from the above scenario, perhaps you'd write: "My roommate, Brad, is an ocelot." Doesn't that conjure up a need to put "Desperately Seeking New Roommate!" at your local café? Now, if Brad is a member of this endangered cat family, then perhaps you should call The Humane Center or your local zoo. However, if Brad is from the genus homo sapiens and embodies certain ocelot characteristics (e.g., is from Texas, has large spots, can run really fast, likes to climb trees, etc.) then that ad might not be such a bad idea. (See links below for more info on how to save this endangered species.)

How about another set of examples? Last year, at ComicCon, one of the Mars panelists said that Mars is the next frontier. This is a metaphor comparing the planet Mars with Earth's Old West. While we'll need more efficient means of travel than horses, wagons, and feet, there are definitely more than a few acres of vast open space on Mars. The question is, however, whether or not is habitable as well as already habited…

An extended metaphor would be one which was sustained throughout a poem. This would be called the "conceit" of the poem. For example: The English teacher scavenged through desk drawers, clawed through old papers, then finding the one she was looking for, licked it clean of ink."

An implied metaphors might resemble the following: "The English teacher smiled, her feral teeth still dripping with fresh blood. 'O+ anyone'?"

Some people don't like it when you mix your metaphors. They like consistency. They like coherence. An example of a mixed metaphor would be something like the following (NOTE: mixed metaphors want to be extended metaphors but they get all confused and tangled up in the process-unless they're intentionally wrought this way…): "Censorship is a bouncing ball on a stormy sea." Why is this a mixed metaphor? For one, balls don't bounce on seas, stormy or otherwise. They usually bounce on floors or concrete. To "fix" this, I might say: "Censorship is a deflated ball", or "censorship is a ship sucked into the Bermuda Triangle."

Other people really seem to like clichés, which are worn-out, dried-up, oft heard phrases that used to be clever similes and metaphors. You can make them work for you…well…sometimes (See: "the clichéd muse" in the links section.).

While I was at the Idyllwild Poetry Festival, work-shopping one of my poems with Richard Garcia et al, several people thought my use of the word, "morph", was a cliché. Ironic, isn't it, that none of them (with the exception of RG) are "into" SF and spec poetry…I used the word to describe the narrator, who "morphed" from a woman into something else. My poem, which is the title piece for an upcoming collection, Jupiter's Eye, could be categorized as "speculative poetry". One of the points that RG made (and bingo-he got it!) was that "Jupiter's Eye" could be a new term for what we now refer to as a "mirror".

I brought this issue up at the Samsdotpublishing.com message board. Guess what? The general consensus was that we should keep the word because it's not really a cliché. It's part of the language base of SF and spec writing.

Another case to substantiate this would be the calls for articles from alienskinmag.com. They provide the title, and you write the article to go with it. For those of you who haven't read it yet, my article, "Nature Gone Wild: Morphing Animals into Monsters" should now be in their archives.

I think it's safe to say (another clichéd saying) that what may be a cliché to one person, or one genre of writer, may not be a cliché to another. This leads to another point that needs to be made, which is that new experiences and new objects necessitate the need for new ways to identify them; hence, the imaginative, and some say, necessary, realm of neologisms (See the Q&A section for a brief extrapolation.).

What can you do to freshen up that language?

Conduct a cliché search in your work. Is there another way to describe something? If two people are kissing and one says, "the earth moved," you could revise it to: "I just felt the universe shift," or, ""was that a solar flare?" Ok, I could do better, but you get the idea.

Do you have any figurative language in your poem? Would it add to or delete from your poem? Sometimes, less is more. Other times, more is more. But there comes the time when any is too much. If your poem is flat, dare I say, "boring" (I've had people tell me this before…), or someone else says, "nothing's happening here for me", then you may want to consider adding in a metaphor or a simile.

The first two lines of my poem, "the understudy", are a simile: "you slay me/like some creature from a B horror flick…" I'm planning to revise and expand this poem, and have been thinking about further Hitchcockian allusions. What if the first line was redrafted as: "I am the shower where the blonde gets it."

Here, I'm re-casting the narrator as a shower. To say that a narrator is a shower, or that I have a poem narrated by an inanimate object, can make for an automatic catapult into metaphor land. Imagine what that film set shower has seen.

I quite like the idea of a shower in confessional mode…

Do you have so many metaphors (i.e., mixed metaphors) in your poem that it becomes unclear what you're talking about? Not that poetry needs to have clarity. Concrete images are good, though. Are they symbolic? Does something stand for something else?

Don't forget that aliens love oranges…If someone is juggling oranges in a poem, not only might that juggler be an alien, those oranges might be symbols for planets.

Consider this poem in process that has been rejected several times. Why? I think it's obvious: I never name what the thing is. At first, I thought that readers might be able to "plug in" something to make the poem more personal.
It was intended to be in the vein of King's Needful Things, in that our secret desires, those things we crave, those things we are afraid other people will know about us, will surface and emerge if we're not careful. I was also thinking that no matter how hard we try to hide who we are, we are oh so easily read…

it's yours

that thing
you keep hidden
inside
needs to be
outside
to thrive
it thrashes about
near the surface
claws its way
through your skin

but If you let it outside
they will see it
if you let it outside
they will smell it
if you let it outside
they will know it's yours

(several hours later…)

The poem has shifted to a more concrete topic. It still needs work, I think, but how it's about censors and censorship.

Nietzsche was right

You are the thing that festers
a virulent mould that burgeons
in spaces left by books thought safe
on library shelves

You are the thing that consumes
a rancid tumor that constricts
the flow of blood
that brings the mind
to a shuddering close

You are poison
plague
abomination
the monster
to which you give chase

for there are no vampires left
to untie the knots
to count the scattered grains of rice

Links for further exploration:

From MIT, be sure to visit The MIT Electronic Encyclopedia. There "Linguistics and Language" section could change your life!
http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/Front/introduction.html

If you're into diagrams, then be sure to visit this University of Buffalo site for a schematic comparison between the proliferation of rabbits and stem cells:
http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/CVA/Proliferate/CSE663PresTwo/7/28.html

Here's something for a bit of fun…Guaranteed to elicit a few frazzled guffaws.
Tightly Wound: Making fun of academics, 'cause it's easy! http://www.bigarmwoman.com

Check out the new feature at sol-magazine--"the clichéd muse":
http://www.sol-magazine.com

Here's my article, "Nature Gone Wild: Morphing Animals into Monsters", which will probably be in archives by the time you read this:
http://www.alienskinmag.com/aarticles2.htm

If you'd like to read my poem, "Jupiter's Eye", then check out The Fifth Dimension.
http://www.samsdotpublishing.com

If you'd like to read my poem, "the understudy", it's in the "Works of Art" section:
http://www.wordmaster.ev.ro

For more information on how we can save the ocelots, please visit The Last of the Ocelots in the United States:
http://www.kenanderson.net/ocelots/

Q&A

Keep those questions and comments coming! They are the stuff on which I feed! Write to me at terrie@WritersMonthly.com.

Q: What is the relationship between neologisms and euphemisms?

A: Neologisms take many forms. Simply put, the term itself means "new word". In general, they follow the usual "rules" of prefixes, root words, and suffixes. Over the years, so many new words have arisen to describe what we encounter and what tasks we perform when interfacing with our computers. Some might be comprised of existing words which are combined to form new ones with new meanings; others take existing words that are ascribed new meanings.

Consider the following: online, offline, splash page, blog, screen saver, scroll, chat, home page, and other forms of computorspeak. Acronymns abound as well.

Since language is a cultural construction (often referred to as a cultural artifact), it can cross cultural milieus. It's also an organic process, and as such, can assist with the shifting of perceptions and focus

I use the term, "screensaver", for example, to refer to an image on my puter screen when I'm not online. I also use this term in a relationship context. Consider the following scenario:

Man: I'm sorry, but I have to cancel our date again tonight. I have family obligations.

Woman: Again? What do you think I am--your screensaver?!

Euphemisms have many negative connotations due to their ability to obfuscate, or cloud, meaning. While I contend that many euphemisms exist to intentionally block the experience of reality (e.g., peacekeeping forces and Homeland Security), they are also used to "soften the blow" (yes, that was a cliché) of what may be considered harsh, embarrassing, and/or taboo words, thus issues. For example, during recent-and ongoing-education budget cuts, many people are losing their jobs. You're no doubt familiar with the verbal nouns, "pink-slipped" and "golden-handshaked".

On a positive note, the purpose of some euphemisms-as well as neologisms-is to remove sexist, racist, ageist, and other derogatory, demeaning, or just plain discomfiting language. While it is important to know the context of the words, I think these two should "stand without ceremony" (and there's another cliché!): "I'm still young enough" versus "I'm middle-aged"; "I was being female" versus "I'm on my period" (this is good when you work out with men and they want to know where you've been for the past week).

That's it for now. Send yours in, and I'll do a column! Hey-maybe I'll run another contest. Now what should the winner get? Hmmm…

Send your comments and questions-and your poetry-to Terrie Leigh Relf at terrie@WritersMonthly.com

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