Metaphor

We understand the world and each other through metaphor. A metaphor is best when used to explain complex emotional states or take an emotional state experienced by an individual and translate it to a larger, cultural experience that could be understood by a group of people. In this, it is easy to see how clichés form.  We seek a common way to understand each other and we see a common way to communicate thoughts, emotions, and ideas. This is what compels us to take a wolf’s skin and spread it over a sheep. Or, wait, it’s the other way around. The wolf puts on the sheep skin, but is that interesting? Not really. Not anymore, I would say. Maybe it still has some use as a teaching tool. Still, because of this clichéd metaphor, when we think of the reverse, a sheep in wolf’s skin, we understand what that might be like. There are even several other clichés to explain this metaphor:

his bark is bigger than his bite

he talks the talk, but does he walk the walk

 

But of these, imagining the sheep walking around in a wolf’s skin seems far more interesting. Maybe it is because we (or at least I) haven’t encountered this before, but also because it takes a common metaphor, one most of our culture would recognize instantly, and uses it to communicate. What’s communicated is fresh and exciting. Mentally stimulating. It’s one of my favorite parts of poetry.

 

 

Next Week I'll be discussing rivalry.

   

Observation

The following are observations recorded in my notebook from 2009 to present.
 
 
A poet has three ways of looking: observation, memory, and imagination. (Could be a quote that I don’t know who to attribute to.)

 

I have to look at pictures of myself to remember who I am.

 

A friend is like a book of memories.

 

If you adopt someone else’s voice are you taking it away?

 

Once you become everyone, you are no one.

 

It’s dangerous to watch time too closely.

 

Train lovers seldom lie on the tracks.

 

Eventually we all become our representations.

 

There is pleasure in being alone in someone else’s home.

 

We leave marks on every place we visit.

 

I don’t want to live anywhere I can’t outrun the buildings falling.

 

What drives people to write on bathroom walls?

 

There are few things more painful than having the only seat in the bar that faces the married couple in the middle of an argument.

 

A baby’s sleeping form projects her mother.

 

The worst part about living in a cardboard box is anyone can kick your door in.

 

Students write their names in boxes.

 

Face, hands and feet are the most color-filled parts of the body.

 

I have imagined the death of every person I love.

 

Grass should be wild like pubic hair.

 

I haven’t observed much.

 

Next week I'll be thinking about metaphor.

 



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Go through your journal and write down every observation you have made.

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