Lehigh Valley Poetry hosts a monthly “mini workshop” before the monthly virtual open mic- Lehigh Valley Poetry Salon-held on the first Monday of the month on zoom. The mini workshop goes from 8:00-8:30, then we host the open mic. All are welcome. We typically post an event on Facebook on the Lehigh Valley Poetry page and share information about events on Instagram. #lehighvalleypoetry If you want to check out the mini workshop topic ahead of the salon, we try to post them ahead and you should be able to see each month’s topic when you click “workshops” in the menu above.
For April, Poetry Month, the workshop will be hosted by Darrell Parry who plans to talk about metaphors. Below is his description.
For our mini workshop in April we will be tackling the concept of metaphor. I’m guessing we all know that metaphor is a figure of speech describing something by direct comparison with something else, usually something vastly different.
The idea of the workshop is to come up with a description of something and apply it to something else. To start, think of something conceptual that is important to you.
- A relationship (your feelings about that annoying guy from work or memories of your beloved Aunt Gerturde or how you miss the Teddy dear you had when you were little.)
- An emotional attachment to something (Your favorite type of weather, mandatory overtime or how you love to watch all the lights on the garbage truck in the 5am darkness)
- An idea or system (like justice, capitalism or revenge)
Whatever you select can be positive or negative in nature. Think about the qualities of your personal experiences with your selection and jot down some examples of how it compares to something unrelated that is concrete and more physical in nature.
Examples:
a fish
a playground/ amusement park
a kitchen
a machine
a junk drawer
a forest
a natural disaster
You can make a list or incorporate it into a short poem. Either way, have fun with it!
If you need inspiration look at this poem by Paul Corman-Roberts.
Candles by Paul Corman-Roberts
Do you know why candles are so cool?
When you look close at them, they look like the number one
as if they represent a singularity
when in fact they require three components to function:
wax, wick and flame. Mostly wax.
So much wax in fact, that the wax molecules inside the candle
look around and all they see are a bunch of other wax molecules
that look like they do for the most part.
So they declare their sum total to be wax:
“We look like wax, we act like wax, therefore we are wax.”
But someday they will figure out they are a candle.
Someday they will begin to hear rumors of an impending flame.
Then one day the flame will get close,
and the molecules will discover they can do things
they did not believe they could do.
They will separate from their neighbors and communities.
They will function at velocities they had not dreamed possible.
They will find their lives have become more fluid,
and accordingly, they will find their own levels
before becoming part of the flame
which somehow got to be so much larger than the wax.
And if you think this story is about candles,
then you’re still just part of the wax.
