Exploring Imagery

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Exploring Imagery

• The Creative Writers Craft
• Chapter 5 Mining the Memory Memory and
  Imagination, Imagery and Diction
• Part 3

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Self Editing

• By this point you should have a poem filled with
  images that retell a memory.
• The meaning was not told although you may have
  inserted imagined details that portray emotions.
• There are many images and multiple senses used

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Self Editing

• The poem has action, detail and emotion
• If there is not a single image that is repeated
  or echoed throughout the poem, at least one needs
  to be added
• The meaning will spring from the images and come
  clear as those images are tweaked

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Self Editing Questions

• Look at your poem
• What images instigate feelings? What senses do
  they use?
• If an image does not use a sense, discard it and
  use a different one

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Self Editing Questions

• Is an image repeated? What does the repetition
  suggest?
• Take a look at the poem. One image should be
  repeated (or echoed). It should be a strong
  image that is central to the poem.

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Self Editing Questions

• Look at the speakers emotional reaction?
• If your speaker does not have a distinct and
  strong emotional reaction, revise it. The
  speaker should be strongly involved in the poem.

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Revising with Diction

• Finding the correct image requires the use of a
  good word choice
• There is a difference between a tree and a willow
  tree, a bird and an eagle, a knickknack and a
  chipped coffee mug from Niagara Falls
• Sitting and slouching, opening a door or flinging
  it wide open

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Diction

• The words chosen can express a vague description
  of things and actions or a very specific
  description.
• The poem should be filed with sensory details
  words that appeal to one of the senses.

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Trashpickers

• The first three lines convey a clear image
  trashpickers making their rounds.
• Throughout the rest of the poem, these
  trashpickers take on angelic qualities and share
  in a happy experience.

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Trashpickers

• Neys word choice shows not only the direct
  sensory experience of touching what has been
  thrown away, but also the larger human experience
  of ritual and discovery and joy.
• Poking good active verb
• Bent hanger useless and can be cast aside like
  the tinfoil wads and other trash items
• The words are specific to trash.

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Blackberry Picking

• Glossy purple clot, red ones inked up, big dark
  blobs
• This description is contrasted by the images of
  disappointment fur, a rat grey fungus, the
  juice was stinking too
• These images prepare the reader for the speakers
  emotional reaction I always felt like crying.
  It wasnt fair.

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Writers Practice 5.3

• Answer the three questions based on your first
  poem draft.
• For question 2 If you do not have five
  important images in the poemrevise so that you
  do have five. Then go with the rest of the
  table.
• What emotions do those images create?
• What is the picture or response?

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Writers Practice 5.3

• After you fill in the table in question 2, then
  go to question 3.
• The answers here will be new to the poem.

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Writers Practice 5.3 WIJ

• Using the work from 5.3, revise your poem.
• Avoid fancy wordsremember the rule of KISS
• Think about the following questions
• Which images instigate feelings? What sense do
  they use?
• Is an image repeated? What does the repetition
  suggest?
• What is the speakers emotional response?

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Assignments

• 5.3 Poem draft 2 is due by end of class
  Wednesday
• After the test on Thursdaystudents should begin
  peer editing with classmates. If you dont
  finish peer editing, you will finish Friday.
  Final poem is due at the end of the day Monday.
• Chapter 5 Test Thursday