April 13 – 13 Is Poetry

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.” ~ Diane Setterfield

I began this prompt with a quote from The Thirteenth Tale because on the 13^th day of our 30/30 in April, I wish to celebrate the number 13 and metaphor (as a poetic device).

The guidelines:

- choose 3 to 13 (nonconsecutive) words out of Setterfield’s quote

- use them in a poem that is a deliberate celebration of metaphor

I’m adding two simple definitions of metaphor (stolen from the dictionary *cough*), just so that we can hear the same tune (which, of course, we should dance in our own styles):

1) Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable

2) Metaphor is a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract

I also want to share one of my favorite metaphors from Sylvia Plath, “I’ve eaten a bag of green apples”, which appears in her poem (aptly titled), “Metaphor”. Today, I wish to read poems full of metaphors used to tell tales as mind-tickling as Sylvia’s bag of ambiguously green fruit.

Let’s fill the Imaginary Garden with poetry that shows how metaphor can help us birth art that keeps us from disappearing when we die. Please add the direct link to your poem to Mr. Linky. Then go for a swim in other Toads’ poetic ink.