Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 12:53:47 -0500
From: ~CK~ 
Subject: {poetry} EXCERCISE:Focus on Image

Well here goes, I hope I did this right...

Focus On Image

References:

Discovering Poetry.  Hans P. Guth and Gabriel L. Rico.
1993.  Simon & Schuster.

The Practice Of Poetry.  Robin Behn & Chase Twitchell.
1992.  HarperCollins.

"Great Literature, if we read it well, opens us up to the
 world.  It makes us more sensitive to it, as if we acquired
 eyes that could see through things and ears that could hear
 smaller sounds." 
                                                                    -Donald Hall

"It is better to present one image in a lifetime than to
 produce voluminous works."
                                                           -Ezra Pound

"Images in verse are not mere decoration, but the very
 essence of an intuitive language."
                                                                -T.S. Elliot

Definition of Terms:

Image:A literal or "concrete" detail that speaks to the physical
senses.

Concrete:Vivid, graphic images that appeal strongly to the senses, as 
opposed to generalized "abstractions."

Abstraction:A generic, broad label that describes a large category--
such as happiness, freedom, or honor.  

Introduction to Image:

Good poetry takes the reader, into a world of senses: vividly 
imagined details that speak to our ability to see, hear, smell, 
taste, and/or touch.  Poetry should always be read with open 
eyes and willing ears.  A strong piece of verse should heighten 
the reader's awareness, make her take in more of the world 
around her.  A good poem asks her to look in and wonder 
at what she sees.  A strong central image will carve itself
into the memory of the reader.  And set off a chain of associations, 
which will activate her thoughts and feelings.

Examples and Perceptions of Poems, Which Center on a Memorable Image:

Thodore Roethke

My Papa's Waltz

The Whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing is not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

 
Ask yourself, what does this piece make you see?

A father, home from work, dancing about the house with his father.
But there are clues to tell us all is not quite right.  The whiskey on 
on the man's breath, right away gives a hint.  And the frantic way
the boy's father is spinning and prancing around, so the boy has
to hang on "like death."  And the pans are sliding from the kitchen shelf.
But it is the mother's expression which makes us certain, all is not well...
"mother's countenance/could not unfrown itself."  Clearly the mother does 
not approve of the father's behavior.  And the child is unsure, along for the
ride.

All of these small details, set out, bring further associations.  
Some of them may seem confusing at first, "romp" is usually 
associated with a happy experience.   But if we consider the
speaker is a child, he may not quite understand the condition his
father is in, and why it is objectionable to his mother.

Robert Hayden

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early,
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze.  No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house.

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

What does this poem make you feel?

The poet makes the reader feel and suffer the bitter
cold, by appealing to our senses of touch and sight.
It is easy to see the "blueblack cold," and feel the
roughness of the "cracked hands that ached."  When the
fires drive away the cold, we experience a sense of relief, 
and we can hear the cold "splintering, breaking," in the heat.
The boy's fear of his parents arguing, "chronic angers of that house." 
And his regret "No one ever thanked him." that he never 
responded to the love his father showed by rising before 
everyone else to warm the house. Everything is quite 
understated, but shown very well by a few interrelated images.

Exercise:

Choose a particular item or activity and make that the object of a word search.
Find out as much as possible about the language associated with the object,
especially active and concrete verbs, the history of the names used for the
object, and terminology that seems especially interesting.  Then save from
your search a list of 5-7 nouns, 5-7 verbs, and 10-15 adjectives.(words may
be repeated, or the form of the word altered.)  

Write a 15-20 line poem, in any form or style, using the words from the
lists, keeping one last criterion in mind--the subject of your poem must be
completely different than the original object of your word search.

The point of this exercise is, first to explore language sources, and
second, to promote thinking about image.  Also, you will discover new uses
for found words, a process by which poems are often discovered.  Also their
is often a renewing of the metaphoric origin of a word, which has become
stale with abstraction.    

Critique Guidelines:

Critiques should focus on the use of language in the piece.  

-Do the word choices in the piece, along with how they are put together,
 stimulate certain reactions with our senses.  
-What do the words make you see, hear, taste, touch, and/or smell.  
-Has the use of language put you in a palpable surrounding?  
-And how well do separate images go together to create the whole scene?
-Where and how does the use of imagery, help you to share in the experience 
 with the speaker?	

-CK

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