poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 15th

SHATTERED GLASS metaphor

Have you ever noticed that when you’re shopping for a couch, suddenly you see couch ads everywhere? It’s as if someone turned off your couch filter.

That’s what’s happening to me during this whirlwind metaphoraffair.

People are talking in metaphors!  I just came from a meeting and I swear, within 15 minutes, four people used vivid metaphors and similes.

WOWEE! It felt as if I were riding class 5 rapids!

One woman, reflecting on how badly she was treated by family members, said that she thinks of them not as bad people but as if they were made of glass.  She said we’re all broken…we splinter differently, and the pieces can be quite beautiful.

What’s your metaphor?

 

 

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 14th

MY MAMA’S TEETH metaphor

Some people aren’t talkers.  They’re doers.
They may not be able to put into words how they feel about someone,
but their actions show how they feel.  Their actions are metaphors for their feelings.

Here’s a rough draft of one of my poems that illustrates this–(fictionalized but true):

MY MAMA’S TEETH

My mama’s teeth stuck out
when she was a bitty girl and they still do
now. My mama saved her money, every little nickel
and we took two buses and walked a long hot time
to get braces on my teeth which make me cranky.
That’s how she says
I love you.

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 13th

EYEGLASSES metaphor

My friend Bruce Balan did not understand the metaphor of yesterday’s compost poem. I’m sure he’s not the only one! I started to write the following response to him:

I think this is the poet’s challenge. The real reason we spend so much time on each word, each swollen period. To hand what’s so clear (to us) across the table to the reader, who does not wear the same pair of glasses.

…but instead of sending him that email, I decided to try making THAT idea into a metaphor (which may also be too obtuse!)

The title, MY FONDEST WISH, is from a phrase a beloved elementary school teacher always says to her class in one of my favorite picture books, I REMEMBER MISS PERRY written by Pat Brission, illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch (the illustrator of my book, NEW YEAR AT THE PIER). I’m not sure it’s the right title, the right energy. But if you’ve read the book, it would be very evocative.

MY FONDEST WISH

Your glasses? Amazing—
the exact prescription as mine!
Sentences tilt the same way for us,
and each swollen period
bobs up and down in the water
like a beach ball.

Our taste buds? Incredible—
they’re indistinguishable!
So when I hand you a thick slice,
you reach across the table
and it’s bittersweet and creamy
to you, too.

Wow!

======================

Is the idea behind the metaphor(s) in the above rough draft clear?  Can you find the simile?

What’s your metaphor?

 

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 12th

COMPOST BIN metaphor

Here’s another metaphor in a rough draft poem
about the same topic as April 11th…
(read today’s poem first, then scroll down to find out
what I’m really writing about.)

WHAT LIES WITHIN THE BIN

Sometimes it’s good:
sliding the tines of the rake under a big pile,
lifting, then tossing it
into the compost bin.

Your chest swells,
you breathe the earthy air
with a feeling of deep
accomplishment.

Sometimes it’s not:
scooping up all those separate pieces
of who-knows-what,
dumping them in.

And then that awful thought:
Should you have been more careful?
What did you just cover-up?
What’s at the very bottom?

This is about dealing with a pile of emails.

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 11th

STAGNANT WATER metaphor

Happy Poetry Month Day 11!
Can you guess what the title of
my work-in-progress poem is? Answer below.

At first they rained down
and I stretched my dry palm

opened my mouth
welcomed each drop

they filled
my well

Pitter-pat pitter-pat
on and on

the well overflowed
I slogged through mud

now unhinged commas
swim in circles

and there’s a
dank dangerous stagnant smell

========================
Could you guess what the metaphor of
stagnant water might be in disguise?
The title of my poem is OLD EMAILS.
Ick, right?
I just slogged through a pile–whew!

 

 

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 10th

A WASHING OF HANDS metaphor

Sometimes it seems I’ve died and gone to Metaphor Heaven.

As when I first read former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s poem, “A Washing of Hands.”
Here’s what Kooser says about metaphor:

“you want both sides to work perfectly well together. It’s a matter of paring away the things that won’t work in the comparison and being sure that the only things in the comparison are ones that play on both sides.”

“A Washing of Hands” by Ted Kooser begins,

She turned on the tap and a silver braid
unraveled over her fingers.
She cupped them, weighing that tassel,
first in one hand and then the other,

In fact, I’m sending you to Lauren Camp’s post to read the whole poem right now. Click here.

Heaven indeed.

 

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 9th

DIGGING DOG simile

Myra Cohn Livingston used to make us write haiku every day. Many haiku.
And work on different rhythms, too.  Work and work and work.
Just like practicing scales on my violin.
They may not have been pretty,
but that’s the way I finally “got” it.
That was the beginning of my 10,000 hours.
I called them Poetry Scales.

Guess what? Searching for similes or metaphors = Poetry Scales!

The poem I wrote today describes how I finally found something worth writing about.
Here’s the part of the poem where I used a simile:

Sitting at an old picnic table,
I paw through my day like a digging dog,
looking for that One Thing.

Eli (r) and friend looking for the best spot to dig for metaphors

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

2 Responses to “DIGGING DOG simile”

1. Doraine Bennett says:

   April 9, 2014 at 2:19 pm

   April, Thanks for these wonderful lessons in metaphor. This is a weak area for me, so I’ve loved reading your posts.
2. April says:

   April 9, 2014 at 7:33 pm

   I feel as if I AM getting better at metaphor-brain, Doraine. Thank you for your comments!

April 8th

BIRDS metaphor

I have a friend who works in the TV biz.
I started writing a poem about how tired she was after such long hours.

I tried out these metaphors:
A Shar Pei (that wrinkled dog from China)?
An old 12″ ruler—used for years, wood numbers blurred?
A faded thrift store stuffed bear, its nose hanging by three threads?

Nope. None of these.

I kept writing.  I got down to the core: how badly I want to save her from
the mean and demanding people she works for.

Here’s part of the first draft:

birds
flapping at your window

birds
shrieking through your phone

birds
scratching in that gravel

peck,
……..peck,
…………….pecking
for the sharpest stones

Now it’s your turn: what upsets you?  What metaphor could describe it?

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 7th

SHAMPOOING simile

I was at the hair dresser today and in my current state of must find a metaphor,
I wondered how I would describe the delicious feeling of her fingers scrubbing my scalp.

As she moved me from the shampoo sink to her chair, I scribbled in my little notebook:

Scrubbing my soapy head,
Mommy’s strong fingers
are…roller brushes?
are…farmers tilling soil?
are…rough, tough waves?

Then I thought, hmmm…maybe I have it backwards.
Maybe it’s not that Mommy’s fingers are ocean waves but that ocean waves are like her fingers.

Here’s where the thesaurus can either be helpful or drive me stark, raving mad:

Ocean waves crashing,
{bashing, shattering, cracking, smacking, punching, clobbering, pressing, stroking,
massaging, kneading, pushing, playing, molding, brushing, fingering, patting, sweeping, pawing,}
ACK!

Finally, after two hours and 21 revisions, I either nailed it, surrendered or gave up. You decide.

Salt water waves foaming over the sand                   
like my grandmother’s fingers shampooing the shore

How about sharing a simile or metaphor of your own…or someone else’s?

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 6th

LAYER CAKE metaphor

Today is my son’s birthday.

I had been trying to describe hunger in a simile to a friend.
I told her that hunger is like close range gunfire.   It scares my body that much.

Today, in thinking about a metaphor which describes my son,
I realized that he is exactly the opposite of hunger to my body.

He is delicious.

THE OPPOSITE OF HUNGER

My son is
the opposite of hunger.

My son is
a layer cake

—so many layers!—
with sweet cream between

(this is a rough draft…please respect my (c) 2014.  Thank you!)

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

One Response to “LAYER CAKE metaphor”

1. jama says:

   April 6, 2014 at 5:18 pm

   Yes to the layer cake metaphor!

   And it’s too cool that your son was also born in April. Delicious indeed.

April 5th

WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT? simile

For Poetry Month 2014,
I’m searching for metaphors and similes.
Join me!  Here’s a bit more on this month’s project.

It’s working!  In searching for them every day, metaphors and similes have started singing in my brain!

I am watching a family on the sidewalk after a rain.  They are looking up, faces glowing, pointing and drawing arcs in the air.

Here is part of  my poem:

making arcs
with outstretched arms
like windshield wipers
their faces teachable
like open apples

(of course you know what they were looking at…)

Now it’s your turn:  look around.  Find your metaphor or simile!

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

3 Responses to “WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT? simile”

1. Richard Moore says:

   April 5, 2014 at 11:58 pm

   Mushrooms
   Sylvia Plath

   Overnight, very
   Whitely, discreetly,
   Very quietly

   Our toes, our noses
   Take hold on the loam,
   Acquire the air.

   Nobody sees us,
   Stops us, betrays us;
   The small grains make room.

   Soft fists insist on
   Heaving the needles,
   The leafy bedding,

   Even the paving.
   Our hammers, our rams,
   Earless and eyeless,

   Perfectly voiceless,
   Widen the crannies,
   Shoulder through holes. We

   Diet on water,
   On crumbs of shadow,
   Bland-mannered, asking

   Little or nothing.
   So many of us!
   So many of us!

   We are shelves, we are
   Tables, we are meek,
   We are edible,

   Nudgers and shovers
   In spite of ourselves.
   Our kind multiplies:

   We shall by morning
   Inherit the earth.
   Our foot’s in the door.
2. B.J. Lee says:

   April 6, 2014 at 11:11 am

   Very nice! I love the *faces are teachable.* Is this what a teacher experiences when looking at her students’ faces? hmm, this one is teachable, this one is not. It is an interesting metaphor to me.
3. April says:

   April 9, 2014 at 10:57 pm

   Thank you for that most amazing poem, Richard–wow. I especially love that last stanza.

   And B.J: I kept looking for royalty-free photo of a half an apple. Since I’m traveling, I couldn’t take one myself. That openness is what I saw in my last group of students.
   We’re not always so lucky, are we?

April 4th

FLAG metaphor

For Poetry Month 2014,
I’m searching for metaphors and similes.
Join me!  Here’s a bit more on this month’s project.

I’m thinking about my nephew.  It’s his birthday.

What’s a metaphor for this radiant young man?

A star?  A fresh-picked grape, bursting with flavor?  The peal of a bell?

Or perhaps a crisp flag, snapping in the wind?

I’m playing around with this metaphor in a rough draft:

BIRTHDAY BOY

You are a flag in the wind
beaming your colors
on this blustery day

Join me–what’s your metaphor today?

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

One Response to “FLAG metaphor”

1. Amy Ludwig VanDerwater says:

   April 4, 2014 at 2:41 am

   Wow, April. What a neat series. Happy birthday to your nephew-flag! I wish him warm winds. And I’ll be back.

April 3rd

MORNING GLORY simile

For Poetry Month 2014,
I’m searching for metaphors and similes.
Join me!  Here’s a bit more on this month’s project.

I looked out my window today as a young couple, walking hand and hand,
turned to walk up my neighbor’s driveway.

Hand and hand.  What’s something to compare that to?

I thought of our morning glory vine threading through a fence.

Hand in hand, like a morning glory vine…hand in hand, your hand, mine.

Raw material for a poem someday?

Perhaps.

What’s your simile?

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 2nd

WHITEWASHING WALNUT TREES metaphor

.
For Poetry Month 2014,
I’m searching for metaphors and similes.
Join me!  Here’s a bit more on this month’s project.

As kids, my sister and I helped whitewash the trunks of the walnut trees on our farm to protect them from sunburn.
Whoever thought that trees could get sunburn?

At the end of the day, it was eerie to look back on row after row of white tree trunks.

Here’s the metaphor in a part of a poem I’m writing:

I swig a drink from my canteen
look back upon this grove of trees
their leafy fingers wave to me
a ghostly wave
from ghostly trees…

 

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved


April 1st

TANGERINE metaphor

For Poetry Month 2014,
I’m searching for metaphors and similes.
Join me!  Here’s a bit more on this month’s project.

The other day I wrote a poem about a tangerine.

In my poem, the tangerine was a gift,
and I looked forward to eating it,
to having all of its tangerine sweet-ness to myself.

But my friend came over, crying.

I gave her my beautiful tangerine.

Was my poem about a tangerine?

No.  I used tangerine as a metaphor for my day.
I’d planned to spend it happily alone.
Instead, I shared part of my day with my friend.

poem © 2014 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

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