Hello fellow poets, Alvin has suggested this exercise to get us
writing. Yeah and he said he will be coming here to read them.
So here goes,
Hi DP
A quick follow-up exercise while the ideas are still "fresh" in
everyone's heads.
This is a follow up to the "metaphor game" ("Religion is like
100plus" etc) and to the Sylvia Plath poem "Metaphors" where she
describes her pregnancy in 9 lines with just images.
Basically the exercise is to create your own "list" poem based on
your own past experiences, but to write using only images and
metaphors (objects, impressions, sounds etc.)
Step 1: Think about an important experience in
your life. It should trigger some strong emotions - be it joy, or
grief, or despair (the stronger the better, though they don't have
to be darkly suicidal!). For eg a love affair, a breakup, the first
death in the family, 1st child born etc. Remember what it felt
like, looked like, tasted like, smelt like, sounded like etc.
Step 2: Take some senses and objects from your
room (either from Where ever you are now or from that important
memory). Try and find a connection between them and your important
experience. Actually the stranger the connection the better.
Step 3: Write a poem with 9 lines. Each line
should describe your important experience using only images,
comparisons, objects, senses. Don't say "I fell in love that
night". Say "A door I never knew was locked, fell open" etc.
etc.
Use Plath's METAPHORS poem as a guide to just how wild (and yet
still relevant, and suggestive) images can be.
Have fun!
Alvin
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For those who did not attend the workshop, here is Sylvia Plaths
poem
METAPHORS
Im a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loafs big with its yeasty rising.
Moneys new-minted in this fat purse.
Im a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
Ive eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train theres no getting off.
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Who want to go first? 
