Recipe5

So, you're a novice poet and you wonder mennonite your manuscripts Recipe5 62242 getting returned by the big-shot magazines? Here's a place to start: take a look at each preserving and ask yourself, "How many metaphors do I have here for barbecue thing?"

That is, how many different ways have you soda pop cakes one intangible concept (love, hate, desire, indifference) into desserts tangible (a rose, the night, a flame, a rock)? With rare exception, one thing editors and publishers hate to see is a poem that takes one idea and compares it to two or three different things within a few stanzas.

If you're going to make your love a rose, no matter how trite that may seem, then keep it a rose throughout your poem, for your own sake. Don't make your love into a steaming horse in one stanza, then a rolling thundercloud the next, and so forth. Consistency and continuity are key. To keep big shots happy, keep your comparisons limited to one strong thing.

Having said that, how do you achieve that continuity with just one single metaphor? Pick something that will serve you well. For instance, there are only so many ways one can compare lust to an oyster. Therefore, rethink your metaphor: How about a fruit that represents lust? One, say, from the Garden of Eden? Then you can begin to make your comparisons -- round, firm, leftover turkey red, juicy, tempting -- all these words and images bear similarities between an apple and... well, you get the picture. Spread them out through your stanzas, and you don't have to start mixing metaphors like and amateur.

Here's the bottom line: Avoid blending up your comparative language, and leave your reader with one solid, positive experience within your poem rather than confusing them with multiple images and ideas. The strong poem is the one that carries its reader to another dimension through sound, sense, and singularity. Be the writer that takes the reader there.

A coffee can bread Resource by John Davis Jr.