Poetic devices

Charles Watson
ENG 206
Responses to A and C, 41-43
January 28, 2015

A. Ponder similes and metaphors. Which succeed, which fail?

1. Metaphor (succeed)

time = her pure face

2. Simile (fail)

dainty leg

white and hairless as an egg

3. Metaphor (succeed)

Sweet marmalade of kisses newly gathered

Yes! Bits in the marmalade, embedded in sweetness

4. metaphor (fail)

Sweet maidens with tan faces and bosoms fit to broil

5. simile (fail)

like one with hornets in his hair

would one leap if he had hornets in his hair?

Maybe.. frantic would be more operative response; to leap would be wasted and possibly risky movement

6. metaphor (fail)

No. Even though inviting, as one’s own rump is not shaped as a one-dimensional, heart-shaped valentine (symbol). BUT, a sow’s rump might be inviting to the bull swine.

7. Simile (fail)

A dog looking for a place to sleep does not growl, it whines.

8. simile (fail)

An orchestra does not struggle, a musician has an individual struggle.

9. Simile (success)

Waiting to testify “as still as a flag on its stand”

Proper courtroom etiquette.

10. Simile (success)

True, if the trees could hold intelligent memory, they would hail the swaying bat of Ted Williams.

B. Identify, evaluate examples of Analogy, Synesthesia, Allusion, Personification

1. Analogy: Demonstrates our appreciation of flying creatures in allegiance to their appearance and grace.

2. Allusion: Blood down palace walls; the central command; medieval castles; the kings, the queens of old Europe.
   synesthesia: A sigh running in blood.

3. Synesthesia: The yellow noise of sunrise

Personification: Interrupt this ground

Analogy: A sunrise has the potential to interrupt the ground, especially if that ground is unfrozen

4. Personification: Sun laying his chin

Analogy: A weary sun with poppies gathered round

5. Synesthesia: Sound went up like smoke.

Analogy: low sounds continuing, after his hand left the strings, and the sound went up like smoke.

6. Personification: War opened his mouth; trumpet and drum

Allusion: Taps

Analogy: Marching young men, Us, green and dumb; youth go into war with big ego and little understanding of the length and stamina necessary for battle

7. Personification: Wind, breathless from playing; and resting in the bare trees

Allusion: Comparing elements of nature to human activity (wind, rain, fire, earth)

8. Analogy: an overflowing dust collector like a fully grazed cow’s udder

9. Analogy: equipment of old ladies = broken tractors and hidden equipment

Synesthesia: little windows dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs

Allusion: woman of the farm

Personification: Loosening barns hide broken tractors under their skirts

“their” has a double antecedent

10. Allusion: yum-yum / apple pie are clichés of antiquated Americana

Synesthesia: Apple pie symbolizes sight, smell, taste, especially following yum-yum.

Analogy: country girls = yum-yum and apple pie

A poem I hadn’t read and what I found compelling about it

Charles Watson
ENG 206
250 words / Compelling read
January 25, 2015

Elements

The reader’s senses are allowed to play in this eleven line free-verse from Theodore Rothke. The organic imagery calls from the pulp of this anthological paper with rich imagery of pulpy stems that “rank silo-rich”. (“Nothing would give up life”) Random are the shoots and roots in store for the following spring. The owner of the cellar parks them deep in the cellar to keep them from freezing and from active squirrels and possums.

Literally the whole root cellar is alive. That which is considered dead serves as food for the living in the form of mulch and manure, and begs to hold on with mold and with bacteria. There is nothing inherently repulsive about this root cellar, except that perhaps it is living like the thing under the stairs or the body kept in the basement.

Roethke wants to alert us to all the possibilities that lie beneath here before we begin the answer in “Cuttings” on the following page.

The cellar is alive with simile, (“dank as a ditch”) and begs for personification with “roots lolling obscenely from mildewed crates” and shoots that “hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes” with a nod of synesthesia (“roots ripe as old bait”) as we cross senses to see, smell, and even taste them. However, since they are organic and pure as food, we don’t have to fear them. His viewpoint might even be that of an older child experiencing such an adventuresome place for the first time.

There is slight analogy as Roethke alludes to an unheralded motely crew with “And what a congress of stinks!” that calls the reader to liken the dangly root cellar to a political group or to consider the word congress in a different light as a sexual congress and the act of coming together.

“Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.”

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/theodore_roethke/poems/16315

Roethke, Theodore. “Root Cellar.” Contemporary American Poetry; Eight Edition. Edited by A. Poulin, Jr. and Waters, Michael. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. Boston Page 423.

The jam of the sandwich meets the pups of the frontier

The New Bypass

I heard them again
at nearly midnight
under the ink
of a moonless
starry sky.

Scuffling southbound
in a hurried gang
like a happy swarm
of children
laughing and playing,
yelping, dancing, and singing
as an unbound one
without fear of mile-marking gravel.

No cares for they
ran altogether–
orderly
yet not single file,
this moment we have duly prepared
for hundreds of years.

And I thought,
when they build the new school
to reflect and bridge new beginnings
in infinite easement
on this patchwork plain
of needs, wants
and desires,
where the jam of the sandwich
meets the pups of the frontier;

Will the coyotes
still charge on–
invisible in the dark
of some yonder field
as they have
for thousands of years?

I didn’t write this twang / wish I had or could

“Guided By Wire”

Voices that did comfort me
Are furthest from my sanity
And come from places I have never seen
Even in my darkest recollection
There was singin’ my life back to me

The life you learn from someone else
That you can only trust yourself
Sometimes that is still too much to want

Gravity won’t get you through the mazes
You can never travel by the way you’ve come

I could never choose the ones to love
And the ones who took the credit left me reelin’
But I owe much to the nameless and all those surrogates
Those who’re singin’ my life back to me

Life is not a constant thing
It’s only made of short stories
I couldn’t even tell you where I’m from
Guided by the voices I’ve deflected
Guided by electric wires’ hum

I could never choose the ones to love
And the ones who took the credit left me reelin’
But I owe much to the nameless
Those who’re singin’ my life back to me

I see you in the future, skippin’ time
While the eyes of all the faithful rest in peace
Yet tonight I see the highway
And someone singin’ my life back to me