Perspective
If I should wake before I die,
I should like to know I made at least a small difference.
It feels like stones being lobbed at my heart
Repeatedly
Just to make sure that I feel small and worthless.
I feel powerless sometimes
Like there’s nothing I can do to be better
Everything wrong is my fault
I try and I try and I try
To fix the things I cannot change
To change the opinions that won’t be changed by me.
I can only change ME.
She held her life in her own hands as if it were a new
and special gift.
I can choose to be positive
Respectful
To Listen
To try to understand what’s needed from me.
I can choose to do my best
To accept others’ opinions as differing from my own.
I do not have to let them define me.
Brianne, I really enjoyed this poem! I am curious how you feel about the use of similes after writing this poem? You said that beforehand you thought that similes were cheesy and constrained - I would often agree with this because I think that they are usually too blatantly obvious - having to use "like" or "as" to set up a metaphorical idea seems to me to almost remove the value inherent in interpreting complex, abstract writing. HOWEVER, while reading your poem, I honestly barely noticed that the similes you used were in simile form because they fit so well with the flow and context of the poem. Your poem has definitely given me a good example of how similes can be used sparingly and effectively. Still, I am curious as to what you think after doing this exercise? Do you still think that similes are more cheesy and ineffective than more abstract metaphors? Sometimes, complex metaphors are so hard for me to interpret that I would much rather the author used a clearer form - like a simile - instead.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly understand that complex metaphors are uncomfortable. For me, at least, metaphor and literature often force me to realize the extent of my cognitive abilities. In math and science, I can study some appropriate material and eventually arrive at some form of understanding (though, in principle, it may take a significant time to do so). On the other hand, I'm not so certain that if I study Shakespeare, or Chaucer, I will ever come to understand what the author wishes to convey.
DeleteThat, however, gives metaphor and literature a value that cannot commonly be found elsewhere. If you've ever read "The Catcher in the Rye", you may remember that Holden enjoys the museum because the experience is different every time. It is not the exhibit that changes, but the observer. Each time he visits the museum, he gets to learn something about himself.
So it is with metaphor. Where once a rose may be a symbol of happiness, it may again be one of despair. The difference--the ambiguity--lies exclusively with each of us. We then have the opportunity to learn something; what we learn, though, is not something about Shakespeare, or Chaucer, but something about our self, in that moment, and in that time.
I do look at them a bit differently Brandon, and I think that is mostly because the exercise showed me ways that they can still be similes and not sound so blatantly like similes. I think you also have a point in saying that sometimes are too much and are unapproachable in a way. I do think there's a value in the ease and simplicity of similes that make poetry and literature (and even science really) more approachable for the learner.
DeleteAaron also brings up a great point that there is a value in that difficulty of metaphors as well. I think the two are both valuable for different and sometimes overlapping reasons.
What a joy to find Brianne's poem here. There is such a subtlety to the figurative language, no forced constraint bearing back down on her words. An evocative tribute to perspective.
ReplyDeleteBrianne, Brandon and Aaron all point towards the importance of the observer, which can often be the metaphor of the reader who loses themselves for a while between the pages, watching, and listening, then poking their head out on the other side, somehow changed, perhaps more self-aware.
When I spoke about how metaphors work last week, I told the class about the ways in which other species seem to use metaphor, to decipher experience--the phenomena of the world as they interpret and discern. Your discussion here made me think about the crows I observed in my yard, and I wrote the following prose poem. Thank you for the inspiration.
Mystery of Grief
Crows are filling the branches of pine, a murder blackening the afternoon sky. They arrive from neighborhoods, the lake, from foothills & city telephone wires; they come unannounced & unfettered, a slick black shroud of glistening wings on trees, suddenly heavy with sound. The crows honor, mourn, hold wakes—de profundis— for the dead. They are dark symbols of mythology—portents of plague, of sorcery, of evil. But here in my yard, deeply moved by the loss of their own, a dead crow lying in the open grass. They dive and swoop and scold, summoning the flock. Shimmering blue-black glossed faces land and surround the body. Some bring sticks and bits of grass and place it on top of the remains. It’s a mob of emotion, a tribute to pain so visceral it is love’s fire burning holes into the chest, laying hearts outside the skin, vulnerable, apparent sorrow. Soon, they turn and fly off. The tree is empty and the day grows quiet, stilled, again.