Dear SunWinkers:
Going through my old Gather columns, I next run into the topic of onomatopoeia.
Onomatopoeia is a word which sounds like the object (i.e. a sound or something noisy) it describes. They’re everywhere you look! Hundreds have become imbedded in the language, so much so we hardly hear them as such. Some examples of onomatopoeia words:
Whippoorwill
Chirp
Moo
Screech
Chug
Gulp
Belch
Clatter
Sputter
Caw
Clank
Pop
Snap
Crackle
Bark
Yip
The list is endless.
Dear SunWinkers:
Going through my old Gather columns, I next run into the topic of allusion. Allusion is a reference to a commonly known work of literature or piece of history or culture. As with personification, allusion lets the reader relate to your poem on a deeper, more visceral level. Namely, the reader reacts with the feeling or value judgment which he or she associates with the event or piece of literature being alluded to.
A classic example is “The Second Coming” by Y.B. Yeats.
And what rough beast, its hours come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table
T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves
And repeats words without meaning.
Wallace Stevens “The Motive for Metaphor”
Dear SunWinkers:
Two years ago, my third column for Gather was on the topic of personification. So far, going back to my old columns isn’t giving me much of a head start. Oh, well! I must have had a lot to learn back then.
Personification is the assignment of human qualities to an animal, an inanimate object, even an abstract concept. To wit, Emily Dickinson’s
Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—he knew no haste…
Assigning human qualities to an object tells us something poetically about that object. In our example, Dickinson’s poem tells us something about death. She could have just said, “Death is patient.” Giving us the image of Death as a kindly carriage driver lets us to relate to her thesis on a personal level and experience it in a visceral, sensuous way. Death didn’t show up at the door in a black hoodie holding a scythe. Death didn’t throw a bag over her head and toss her into the back seat. Death opened the carriage door, smiled kindly, and invited her in. What does that say about death? Continue reading
As the deer thirsts for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O Lord.
Ps. 42
Like a virgin, touched for the very first time…
Madonna
Dear SunWinkers:
I’ve added an index of all the SunWinks! columns which I’ve posted here on WordPress since May. Find it among the Page links (with “About Me and SunWinks!” and “Submission Instructions”) and also at the bottom of each SunWinks! installment. It will help you enjoy the SunWinks! series in a more systematic way, like an online tutorial. With that, I’m going to start polishing up and recycling some of the 60+ columns I did on Gather in 2012-2013 to fill in the topics I need to create a complete tutorial and, ultimately, “SunWinks!: The Book.”
(I’m thinking of calling it “SunWinks!: How To Write Modern Poetry and Get Away With It.” Whaddya think?)
SunWinks! 