HOW TO WRITE POETRY, BY OLAN L. SMITH

Part 4: Tools for Poets

Metaphors, Similes, Parables, Analogies, and Conceits; tools for poets

© 2017, Olan L. Smith

(submitted to Myna at the Poet's Pub for publication)

This article is a brief introduction to metaphors, similes, analogies, and conceits that we use in poetry and storytelling. This is not meant to be a go-to source; rather, it is a guide. Some poets like to just write a story with no hidden meaning, no comparisons, with or without rhymes at the end. However, most poets like to use all or part of the tools given them by the English language to hammer out a poem, but don't forget that the primary element of a poem is the story; even the lowly haiku has a beginning, middle, and end. Please don't get wrapped up in your fancy literary tools and elaborate writing and forget to tell the story, and don't make it so complex that no one can understand the meaning. Now, with that said, shall we look at some of the tools for writing a poem?

You have a thought for a poem, and you think, "I'm going to write a poem, and it's going to be the best poem the world will ever read," but so far it is not a story, and it is not a poem; it is two words, "ocean waves," and you want to build on it. Next, you think, "Ocean waves pound the shores." The poem builds, "Oceans waves pound the shores of eternity," and now you, the poet, have the first line of the poem, and advancing, you craft a two-stanza free verse poem consisting of six lines per stanza.

"Oceans and waves batter the shores of eternity.

Like thousands of horses running

A never-ending race,

This sound is both pulsing and soothing.

Here, a surfer is both master and slave.

One ride as master and next as slave,

Subjugated by an unforgiving beast.

Such is time; she is the beast never mounted,

Never tamed, and never mastered.

All mortals are forbidden to control her.

A mountain is made to ride, but a phoenix

Must burn and crash before its resurrection."

©05.24.17, Olan L. Smith

Let's look at the analogy above. Stanza 1, lines 1, 2, and 3 make a comparison of two things using words like to make the reader aware that two things have similarities, and that is an analogy that logically compares two things. However, when we return to the metaphor, we see how the two comparative things become one: it is where time and ocean waves and eternity become the same; it is the sound of waves becoming one with running horses; and time becomes the unforgiving beast. But in a metaphor, the comparison words "like" or "as" are removed, and the things merge into one essence. For example:

Eternity's oceans are hooves beating on

Ragged cliffs, eroding them into grains

Of sand that slips through the hourglass of Cronus

Never repeated, and never undone; mount the