hey
I have an assignment to write a poem with a contolling metaphor, for example a poem in which you describe how you literally find your tongue to be tied, drawing on the statment..... obvioulsy being tongue-tied. stuff like that. So i was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for a metorphor. I could really use the help... thank Leah



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2005 07:13PM by lg.

The Best Cigarette
Billy Collins

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.

The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.

How bittersweet these punctuations
of flame and gesture;
but the best were on those mornings
when I would have a little something going
in the typewriter,
the sun bright in the windows,
maybe some Berlioz on in the background.
I would go into the kitchen for coffee
and on the way back to the page,
curled in its roller,
I would light one up and feel
its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee.

Then I would be my own locomotive,
trailing behind me as I returned to work
little puffs of smoke,
indicators of progress,
signs of industry and thought,
the signal that told the nineteenth century
it was moving forward.
That was the best cigarette,
when I would steam into the study
full of vaporous hope
and stand there,
the big headlamp of my face
pointed down at all the words in parallel lines.

Les

I love that Collins poem Les---

it's always been one of my favorites. Thanks for posting it.

Lisa

Lisa, some authors use the metaphor so naturally, you're not even aware of the technique unless you read several of their poems at one time. Collins is one of those authors. He can weave a metaphor better than most modern poets I've read.


Les

True, but I am not sure that is responsive to the query. Actually, I am not really sure what the query is myself. Sounds like the poem has to mimic the metaphor somehow. Perhaps something like Holmes's Nautilus?


The Chambered Nautilus

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sail the unshadowed main,-
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,-
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:-

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes


The metaphor compares how the nautilus builds its shell to mankind's continuous building the blocks of life, both individually and as beings on the planet.

I see the poem constructed in somewhat the same manner. That is, the Fibonacci sequence of the shell's chambers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ...) Each stanza has 7 lines of 5, 3; 3, 5; 5, 3; 6 feet, much like the shell of the nautilus. Well, something like that anyhoo.

But, as I say, I am not sure this is what the poster is looking for.

>But, as I say, I am not sure this is what the poster is looking for.

A metaphor which builds on itself? I'm not sure what that means either, Hugh. Perhaps Lbgirl can enlighten us all.


Les