Formative
& Decorative Images
Image: a representation of the external form of a person or
thing in art.
Image: a mental picture of
a person, animal, or object summoned up by a word, phrase, or sentence. Images are often visual, but may
appeal to any of our senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and tough.
Imagery is
the literary term used for language and description that appeals to our five
senses. When a writer attempts to describe something so that it appeals to our
sense of smell, sight, taste, touch, or hearing; he/she has used imagery.
The purpose of imagery is to take
advantage of all of a reader's senses and build them into something vivid and
real in the reader's imagination.
Basho’s
Haikus
The crane’s legs A
bucket of azaleas, A
bee
have gotten shorter in its shadow staggers
out
in the spring rain. the woman tearing codfish of the peony.
Circus
Youth
My life
was going by. Year. Cake. Year. Cake.
And no
circus. No clowns. Only that rotten dress,
[. .
.]
The
Unavoidable Pigeon
I see
it on Cabrillo. Midway through the crosswalk.
Some
people spot an injured pigeon
tumbling
down the street and think
good
riddance. But how can I think that?
[. . .]
The Blue Dress
The first November after
the divorce
there was a box from my
father on my birthday—no card, but a
big box from Hink’s, the
dark
department store with a
balcony and
mahogany rail around the
balcony, you could
stand and press your
forehead against it
until you could almost
feel the dense
grain of the wood, and
stare down
into the rows and rows
of camisoles,
petticoats, bras, as if
looking down
into the lives of
women.
The box was from
there, he had braved that place for me
the way he had entered
my mother once
to get me out. I
opened the box—I had
never had a present from
him—
and there was a blue
shirtwaist dress
blue as the side of a
blue teal
disguised to go in
safety on the steel-blue water.
I put it on, a perfect
fit,
I liked that it was not
too sexy, just a
blue dress for a
14-year-old daughter the way
Clark Kent’s suit
was just a plain suit for a reporter, but I
Felt the weave of the
mercerized Indian Head cotton
against the skin of my
upper arms and my
wide thin back and
especially the skin of my
ribs under those new
breasts I had
raised in the night like
earthworks in commemoration of his name
A year later, during a
fight about
just how awful my father
had been,
my mother said he had
not picked out the dress,
just told her to get
something not too expensive, and then
had not even sent a
check for it,
that's the kind of man
he was. So I
never wore it again in
her sight
but when I went away to
boarding school I
wore it all the time
there,
loving the feel of
it,
just casually mentioning
sometimes it was a gift from my father,
wanting in those days to
appear to have something
whether it was true or a
lie, I didn’t care, just to
have something.
--Sharon Olds (The Gold
Cell)
Circus
Youth
My life
was going by. Year. Cake. Year. Cake.
And no
circus. No clowns. Only that rotten dress,
blue and
tumbling. I wanted to eat the buttons.
I wanted
to feed the rest—cuffs and collar—
to the
dogs. Let it be dung. Let it be
that
common. I craved a ship. I desired
a texture
wholly unlike my life. Clowns.
Funny
rubber balls. Who handed me these knives
to
juggle? Who said everything was going to be fine?
I know. I
know. Childhood shows no mercy.
Others
have had to catch much trickier knives—
all
blade, no handle. No one meets our demands
for
better maps or parents or more robust
Saint
Bernards. The worst day of my life.
The
circus. The tragic reality that it was
a show.
Lions
reduced to cats. Leather-clad men riding motorcycles
inside
metal balls. The terror of the ringmaster,
so much
like my grandfather, folding in a bow.
We took you, my parents said. And it wasn’t
a lie.
Elephants in chains. Painted faces blistering
under the
makeup’s grease. Afterward,
I ached
on my sandbag pillow. Pots clattering
to the
kitchen floor. A heap of a dead horse
melting
in the field beyond my window.
Couldn’t
there be a different circus? Music
piped at
the happiest pitch? Children so thrilled
they shit
themselves in the stands and smile on?
And clown
hands, clown necks, clown thighs put together
to
assemble a truly hilarious thing?
Futile, I know,
I prayed
for years. Slowly flowering in my bed.
Certain
of something. Wanting what I wanted.
Clown in
my doorway. Clown on my floor.
A clown
on my very own thumb.
Kristen Tracy
The Unavoidable
Pigeon
I see it
on Cabrillo, midway through the crosswalk.
Some people spot an injured pigeon
tumbling down the street and think
good
riddance. But how can I think that?
I know this bird. I’ve seen it before.
Balboa. Anza. Clement. Its wounded
foot
lifted high into its feathered body.
No, I will never take this bird
home.
I root for it in other ways. What a
survivor!
I pass it
on the way to the post office,
parading like a governor in a bright
patch of sun. Don’t worry. This bird
will
never break my heart. Not right now.
Not tomorrow. Not next week when I
find it
hammered to the road. Poor
bird.
A
ruptured viola. All of its red strings
pulled out of it. Even with big
dreams,
a pigeon can only survive so long
on these
streets. Had you asked me, had you
been a reasonable being, I
would
have warned you to stick to the sky.
For me, a good a story requires that
something happens that is so important, that by the end of the story the
character is changed by it.
Where does your story happen?
When does your story happen?
Who is your story about?
Three Ideas from your real life:
1.
2.
3.
Three ideas from your imagination:
1.
2.
3.
How do you build a
character?
Write a
poem that shows how a single event in your life changed you. I’ve given you the
title, the first few words of the first line, and the last line. Try to be as
specific as possible. And try to keep your poem to less than ten lines or
sentences. Remember, focus on the specific event (real or imaginary) and focus
on how it changed you. Your poem doesn’t have to rhyme, in fact it will
probably be easier if you write it without any rhymes. I’ll read you an
example.
Autobiography:
an account of a person’s life written by that person.
Autobiography
When I
was
And here
I am today
When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.
I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.
If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."
And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!
by
Frank O’Hara
Update: baby praying mantis continues to grow.
