September 18 Workshop Information
Moderator: Laurel Becker		 Poetic Forms: Extended Metaphors List of all workshops

TALKING POETIC TURKEY:
GETTING REAL AND READABLE
USING EXTENDED METAPHOR

           Sometimes, after reading a poem, I find myself staring into space, looking for some kind of connection to what I have just read.  Although it is true that not everyone can connect with every poetic effort, some poems seem intentionally opaque to most readers.

Although I use many poetic forms, both traditional and nontraditional, it has always been my intent to reach the audience with ideas, thoughts, feelings, that if not universal, at least are fairly common.

With the use of simile and metaphor to compare one thing to another, my audience is more apt to connect—not only with my work, but also to some deeper part of themselves.  Metaphor is purer than simile and should be used whenever possible.  However, a simile within an extended metaphor can add depth.

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another—as in “a sea of troubles,” or “All the world’s a stage.”  The word metaphor derives from the 16th-century Old French, Latin, and Greek meanings “to carry over,” “to transfer,” “to carry.”  (Dictionary.com)  Metaphors are built into our language, and used every day.  They can’t be avoided.

Metaphors are way of thinking and, as with the extended metaphor poem, of shaping the thoughts of others.  The extended metaphor in poetry (also called a conceit) extends the metaphor comparison as a theme throughout the entire poem.  It can, thus, be defined as literary (as opposed to ordinary language).

Every metaphor has two parts:

  • The Tenor, which is the thing, or idea, being defined
  • The Vehicle, which is the thing doing the defining

In the following poem, Crossing the Bar, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) compares a ship leaving from the Thames (the Vehicle) to life—and death (the Tenor):

CROSSING THE BAR

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Carl Sandburg uses metaphor to describe fog (the Tenor) as a cat (the Vehicle):

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over the harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then, moves on.

Sometimes, the Tenor or Vehicle is implied—not directly mentioned—as in: “A ghost ship sailed across the night sky (vehicle).  (The moon is the implied Tenor.)  or “Her words (Tenor) cut through my heart.”  (A knife is the implied Vehicle.)

The following is a poem I wrote that is close to an implied Tenor.  I changed the title from My Butterfly to Daughter to more clearly state the Tenor.  However, the use of the pronoun “you” is to me, a subtle Tenor.

By listing characteristics of both the tenor and the vehicle, and sometimes writing a narrative comparing those characteristics, an extended metaphor is more easily developed.  My poem, Children of the Vernal Sun, was first developed from field notes, then a listing of Tenor/Vehicle attributes, which helped me develop the poem.

       DAUGHTER

A swiftly-evolving butterfly,
you had no choice
but to shed your too-small skin.
It hurt, but new lived where
old gave way and, nearly grown,
you wove your soft blanket
into a hard, brown shell.
Clinging with one thin, silk strand
you stubbornly attached
to the mother stem.

Inside, you changed,
melting down to a formless state
where all new things begin again,
unnoticed until the world
would see you fly.
Shaping silently in the cocoon,
you tossed and turned,
keeping time
with your own nature
until the day you came forth.

Bold wings took hold,
strong and colorful,
carried you over the winds of time,
until you landed
just outside my window.

–Laurel Jean Becker

Laurel J. Becker
First Rights
Copyright 2/8/02
20 lines
Winner:  4th Place National Contest
National Writer’s Association

Children of the Vernal Sun

While walking in the park behind my home,
I saw the children of last summer’s balm.
They reveled under oak whose unseen buds
Lie dormant just beneath its supple wood.

Naive brown eyes among the faces glowed;
On spindly legs they played in drifting snow.
Each planted in rich soil, green stock entwined,
They clustered into three small family lines.

Although March winds worked hard to break them down,
Their yellow bonnets would not touch the ground.
Long lithe green arms that pointed to the sky
Waved as the blustery current passed them by.

My shadow lengthens as I walk toward home
And leave these children here in fertile loam.
Within the prints I leave upon this ground
New passers by will walk, observe, expound,

That whirling white worked vainly to suppress
These efflorescent bulbs their own noblesse.
Spring snows which nearly reached their knees would stun
Less hardy children of the vernal sun.