Friday, February 15, 2008

Metaphor Poems


This week Tricia of the Miss Rumphius Effect challenged us to write metaphor poems for her Monday Poetry Stretch. I wrote some little snippets of metaphor poems as a writing exercise for myself. I’ve also included a poem I wrote for This Week’s Photo/15 Words or Less Poems at Laura Salas’s blog.


Sparks from our campfire—
glowing stars feeding
the hungry night

Campfire sparks wafting
into air…lightning bugs
dancing in the dark


Snowflakes fluttering
from wintry skies…flocks
of white butterflies


Snowflakes…
stars of lace whirling
around in white galaxies


Earthbound astronaut…
goose splashes down on
moon’s reflection

Crescent moon…
silver canoe drifting through
a sea of stars

Cloud boats float across
the pond, ferrying ducks
to the other side

Crows perched on telephone lines…
commas punctuating
a paper white sky

Here is a link to Poetry Stretch Results-Metaphor Poems at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

This is the poem I wrote for This Week’s Photo. The picture brought to mind the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. When I looked at a close-up of the photo, the lines/ridges reminded me of yarn. So I wrote the following metaphor poem snippet.


Europa

Net of golden yarn
Cast off by Jupiter
To snare a mighty moon—


Check out my earlier post Book Bunch: Looking at Langston Hughes. It includes a review of Tony Medina's poetry book Love to Langston and links to several poems written by Hughes.

HipWriterMama has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week.

12 comments:

jama said...

Love your snippets, Elaine. My favorites are the goose astronaut, the crows punctuating the sky, and the cloud boats! Also enjoyed your post about Langston Hughes.

Anonymous said...

The astronaut is especially fine, Elaine. Sheesh -- you were prolific!!!

Elaine Magliaro said...

Jama and Liz,

Thanks! It was a good writing exercise for me. My big problem is that I tend to write poetry sporadically. Sometimes there's a drought--and then other times...a flood.
I need to focus myself more. That's what the poetry stretches help me to do.

Andromeda Jazmon said...

I really like these. You've thrown out some fabulous images. I want to read them again and again slowly, visualizing each one.

laurasalas said...

Elaine, Aren't these lovely! The sparks becoming stars and the crescent moons and the canoe one are my favorite! Gorgeous and original!

Elaine Magliaro said...

Cloudscome & Laura,

Thanks, ladies! The two of you serve as fine poetry writing examplars for me.

Elaine Magliaro said...

Whoops! I spelled exemplars incorrectly in my last comment.

Vivian Mahoney said...

Flocks of white butterflies...lovely image of snow.

Sara said...

Europa is so creative---I looked at that image, and couldn't get past "cantaloupe" and here you've gone all the way to Jupiter!

Elaine Magliaro said...

Vivian,

There's something about snow that inspires poetry. I love to watch snow falling. I remember a poem in which N. M. Bodecker compared snowflakes to "albino bees."


Sara,

Maybe I zoomed past fruit and out into space because I love astronomy. I had a great time teaching a unit on space when I was an elementary teacher. My students wrote wonderful poems about the sun, the moon, stars, and planets.

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