Songwriting Without Boundaries (16 page)

Lonely handkerchief sits crumpled at the bottom of a tuxedo breast jacket pocket; folds of origami crisscross its Picasso face. Smooth silk speaks a different language of touch. No one spoke tonight.

I love the “sin-red BMW,” and the way Jess personifies the handkerchief. Personification—attributing human characteristics to nonhuman things—is just one of the many ways to make a metaphor. Just another way to create collisions.

It’s hard to tell in Greg’s sentence whether he’s talking about a person or a piece of cloth. I like when that happens: Call it “productive ambiguity,” having at least two meanings, and both work in the context. You’ll find that productive ambiguity lies at the heart of metaphor.

Now, you try.

Blackened Autumn

ANNE HALVORSEN:
The fire left a blackened autumn, wild flames visible across the great bay.

Flames stripped the green, ate the flower and vegetable gardens one by one, leapt to gold and red leaves then sucked the trees in its mouth and skipped across the roofs gobbling houses leaving grey looming fireplaces, misshapen unrecognizable pieces of home, then, a swing frame in the sodden yard …

CHANELLE DAVIS:
The children couldn’t see any of the usual bright red or orange leaves. The autumn had been blackened by bushfires that turned red and gold leaves to ash.

Charcoal trees, stumps, dusty gray ash flakes landing on my coat, floating on raindrops, dark threatening clouds, rumbling thunder …

Of course, the fires in both pieces blacken things, not the season. So to say that the fire blackened
autumn
is, like all metaphor, literally false. In fact, if the combination could be true, e.g.,
blackened handkerchief
, then it’s not a metaphor. Again, metaphors are always literally false. That’s what makes them interesting.

Your turn.

Fallen Funeral

IAN HENCHY:
Rather than being a celebration of life, it was a fallen funeral—victim to the cause of death: a suicide.

The surprised casket remained closed, hiding the face that the parents were now so ashamed to display. No red roses surrounded the casket, no floral arrangements. The family seeping silent resentment.

ANNE HALVORSEN:
It was to be an event, a gathering, instead it was a fallen funeral, such a failure as these things go.

She wrapped the bird in layers of Easter-colored tissue and plastic grass, placed him gently in the shoebox from mother’s closet, and walked grandly to the tall oak, the retriever striding softly at her side …

Ian’s take on the funeral, which could have been a celebration, has descended into something else. Anne gives a fallen bird a funeral. Nice.

Now, your turn.

Smooth Moonlight

BONNIE HAYES:
The smooth moonlight pours like thick cream through the window.

Spilling across my floor. Silken, undulating—I want to get out of bed and go stand in it, dance in it, let it fall in folds across my skin, feel it on my hair …

BEN ROMANS:
The moonlight carved into the landscape, stroking the hills as smooth as a brush.

The smooth moonlight sunk into the desert ahead. The crickets applauded the shadows’ ballet on the sand. The rest of the sky was envious of the feast below
…

Hot spots: “smooth moonlight pours like thick cream” and “stroking the hills as smooth as a brush.”

Your turn.

Fevered Carburetor

BLEU:
The carburetor was fevered, sputtering the car to life like a half-drowned man coughing up water.

… sputtering to a halt … grinding
…
sweating … oil—enough fumes to get you high … speed–demon … faster
…
harder … clutching, the clutch, with bare feet
…
pushing the pedal so far beyond (through) the vinyl car-mat the asphalt is giving you a manicure … sick
…
with smoke
…
bad emissions …

SUSAN CATTANEO:
On the off ramp, halfway between Phoenix and Flagstaff, the fevered carburetor fainted, giving a huge steam-filled sigh.

Tires sag into the blacktop and the heat shimmers on the horizon. The buzz-saw sound of cicadas and the starched feeling in my throat, smell of mesquite and the starched white sun
…

Now, your turn.

Whew! Quite an introduction to this challenge. The work you’ve done today has put you on a road that will take your writing places it hasn’t likely been too regularly. These metaphor exercises will change the way you look at the world. You’ll see more on the vertical—things stacking on top of each other—rather than horizontally. Things in a line will become only what they are.

Rest now. Another day is coming.

DAY #2

FINDING NOUNS
FROM ADJECTIVES

Yesterday I gave you the combinations and asked you to explore them. Today, I’ll give you the adjectives, leaving it up to you to find nouns to crunch up against them. Don’t grab just anything; take your time and look for provocative, productive collisions.

If you need a nudge finding nouns, or any grammatical type for that matter,
Roget’s International Thesaurus
, the nondictionary-style thesaurus, is a good friend. It’s a great place to hunt, and it corrals nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs into their own separate pens.

As you did yesterday, write a sentence or short paragraph for each collision. Then do a ninety-second piece of object writing for each collision, using it as the object.

Angry __________

ANDREA STOLPE