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Imagery

Appeal to the Senses

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When people say poetry is too “flowery” for their taste, they probably don’t realize that they’ve just spoken like a poet themselves!

That’s because the word flowery is just the kind of word a poet would choose: one that creates and image by appealing to the senses. In these cases, flowery describes the common misconception that all poetry uses delicate words and expressions and is concerned only with what is beautiful in life.

What good poets try to achieve is language that brings as much impact as possible into every word and phrase.

Sensory language, bringing all five senses into use, is a very effective technique.

Definition:

Imagery: The representation in language of sense experience: What can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelled, as well as what can be felt internally.

Images appeal to the senses of the reader, help re-create the experience being communicated, and suggest the emotional response appropriate to the experience.

For Example: Shakespeare's Henry IV

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•         Shakespeare categorizes honey bees as:

–        “soldiers, armed in their stings, [who] make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds”

–        “singing masons building roofs of gold,”

–        “civil citizens kneading up the honey”

•         After reading this, the reader has experienced brief appeals to touch, smell, sound, sight, taste.

Poems don't have to contain flowery language to qualify as poetry

Take Laureen Mar's poem, "My Mother, Who Came From China, Where She Never Saw Snow"

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–        There are almost no gentle words in the poem,
–        Which is written in somber praise of the poet’s immigrant mother’s hard life in a factory.

•         If you reread the poem, you will notice that many lines use sensory language to help us see scenes in a stark mater-of-factness:
    –        Descriptions of women at the machines
    –        The mother’s hair
    –        The thread

•         Hear the sounds of the intense working conditions:
    –        The Chinese dialect spoken harshly
    –        The needle that pounds
    –        The thread that breaks with a snap
    –        The thunder of the machines

•         And above all feel the discomfort of their work
    –        Knees pressed against metal
    –        The pain of chemical burns
    –        The needle pushed through a hand

By so carefully choosing and including words and phrases with powerful sensory appeal – unpleasant and painful as they are – the poet achieves her purpose of making us imagine and appreciate the “frightening” reality of twenty-four years of her mother’s life.

"My Mother, Who Came From China, Where She Never Saw Snow"

In the huge, rectangular room, the ceiling
A machinery of pipes and fluorescent lights,
ten rows of women hunch over machines,
their knees pressing against pedals
and hands pushing the shiny fabric thick as tongues
through metal and thread.
My mother bends her head to one
        of these machines.
Her hair is coarse and wiry, black as burnt scrub.
She wears glasses to shield her intense eyes.
A cone of orange thread spins. Around her,
Talk flutters harshly in Toisan wah.
Chemical stings. She pushes cloth
through a pounding needle, under,
        around, and out,
breaks  thread with a snap
        against fingerbone, tooth.
Sleeve after sleeve, sleeve.
It is easy. The same piece.
For eight or nine hours, sixteen bundles maybe,
250 sleeves to ski coats, all the same.
It is easy, only once she's run the needle through her hand.
She earns money
by each piece, on a good day,
thirty dollars. Twenty-four years.
It is frightening how fast she works.
She and the women who were taught sewing
terms in English as Second Language.
Dull thunder passes through their fingers.

Definition:

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Definition: The representation in language of sense experience: what can be

–        Seen

–        Heard

–        Touched

–        Tasted

–        Smelled

–        As well as what can be felt internally

Images appeal to the senses of the reader, help re-create the experience being communicated, and suggest the emotional response appropriate to the experience.

Images appeal to the senses of the reader, help re-create the experience being communicated, and suggest the emotional response appropriate to the experience.

Imagery in "In the Plaza We Walk," by Nephtali De Leon

"In the Plaza We Walk," by Nephtali De Leon

In the plaza we  walk
under the Mexican moon
full of tangerine smells

A cart pulls over
full of the fruit
full of the moon
        and the lonely star

So we buy two
but he says "three for a peso "
        but we buy two

Tangerines peeled
                    we walk
        hand in hand
        spitting the seeds
                    for future tangerines
        and more lovers to be.

In the plaza we walk
        under tangerine moons.

Insights

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•         The evening walk in the plaza, a park like area in the center of town, is an important custom on some countries, Spain and Mexico, for example.
•         The setting is specific
•         The combination of visual and olfactory imagery makes an effective beginning.
•         There is even a gait to the rhythm that suggests a strolling motion. 
•         Note that each stanza presents, briefly and clearly, an incident in a sequence of events.
•         The last stanza returns to just about the same statement and rhythmic stroll of the first stanza.
•         Question: What is different in the last stanza?
“In the Plaza We Walk” also appeals to the senses, but for a different purpose.
•         De Leon wishes to paint a very sensuous, pleasant scene
        –        people out for a nighttime stroll. 
•         He does this b evoking sights tastes, and smells of the night, and comparing them to something commonplace.

Imagery in "Warning," by Jenny Joseph

"Warning," by Jenny Joseph

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When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.


Imagery


Name some of the things the speaker says she will do when she is an old woman.

Imagery:

•         How does the author’s use of imagery differ in depicting the speaker now and as an old woman?

–        The imagery of the speaker’s present life is sober, every-day.

–        The imagery she uses to describer her future is colorful and fantastic. 

•         What are some examples in the poem of appeals to sight, sound, touch, and taste?

–        Sight: red hat,

–        Sound: alarm bells

–        Touch: Walking in the rain

–        Taste: sausages, bread, and pickles

Insights:

•         Jenny Joseph ran a pub.

–        That suggests an independence of spirit.

Is the poet likely to be the speaker in this poem?

•         Would you expect an old woman like Jenny Joseph to make those same declarations in “Warning”?

Imagery and Allusion in May Swenson's "Centaur"

"The Centaur"

By May Swenson

The summer that I was ten--
Can it be there was only one
summer that I was ten? It must

have been a long one then--
each day I’d go out to choose
a fresh horse from my stable

which was a willow grove
down by the old canal.
I’d go on my two bare feet.

But when, with my brother’s jack-knife,
I had cut me a long limber horse
with a good thick knob for a head,

and peeled him slick and clean
except a few leaves for the tail,
and cinched my brother’s belt

around his head for a rein,
I’d straddle and canter him fast
up the grass bank to the path,

trot along in the lovely dust
that talcumed over his hoofs,
hiding my toes, and turning

his feet to swift half-moons.
The willow knob with the strap
jouncing between my thighs

was the pommel and yet the poll
of my nickering pony’s head.
My head and my neck were mine,

yet they were shaped like a horse.
My hair flopped to the side
like the mane of a horse in the wind.

My forelock swung in my eyes,
my neck arched and I snorted.
I shied and skittered and reared,

stopped and raised my knees,
pawed at the ground and quivered.
My teeth bared as we wheeled

and swished through the dust again.
I was the horse and the rider,
and the leather I slapped to his rump

spanked my own behind.
Doubled, my two hoofs beat
a gallop along the bank,

the wind twanged my mane,
my mouth squared to the bit.
And yet I sat on my steed

quiet, negligent riding,
my toes standing the stirrups,
my thighs hugging his ribs.

At a walk we drew up at the porch.
I tethered him to a paling.
Dismounting, I smoothed my skirt

and entered the dusky hall.
My feet on the clean linoleum
left ghostly toes in the hall.

Where have you been? said my mother.
Been riding, I said from the sink,
and filled me a glass of water.

What’s that in your pocket? she said.
Just my knife. It weighed my pocket
and stretched my dress awry.

Go tie back your hair, said my mother
and Why is your mouth all green?
Rob Roy, he pulled some clover
as we crossed the field,
I told her.

About the Poem

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Abstract :
First published in 1955, May Swenson's "The Centaur" remains one of her most popular and most anthologized poems. This is its first appearance as a picture book for children.

In images bright and brisk and nearly tangible, the poet re-creates the joy of riding a stick horse through a small-town summer. We find ourselves, with her, straddling "a long limber horse with . . . a few leaves for a tail," and pounding through the lovely dust along the path by the old canal. As her shape shifts from child to horse and back, we know exactly what she feels.

Sherry Meidell's water-color illustrations perfectly convey the wit and wisdom of May Swenson's poem. These are playful, satisfying images full of vitality and imagination. Meidell handles the joy of poem's fantasy and the joy of its occasional naughtiness with equal success.

"Utah State University." Site. Utah State University, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

See the entire digital copy of the book at: http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=usupress_pubs

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Centaur: In Greek Mythology, a being that had the head, arms, and chest of a human and the body and legs of a horse.
What do you think the reason was for Swenson choosing "The Centaur" as the title of the poem?

Imagery and Allusion

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Allusion: A reference to a person, thing, event, situation, or aspect of culture, real or fictional, past or present. 

An Allusion may draw from literature, myth, history, or the Bible.

What is the tone of this clip?

Terms to Know

Imagery
Allusion
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