Ah, metaphor. I won't bother quoting the Marianne Moore poem, since that's the one that's most quoted when this subject comes up.
For me, metaphor that works when I read other people's work is the whole 'oooh yes' factor. It's the journey from one to the other that creates the path that I realize has always been there, just that I needed that gentle nudge to see it. Anything true has a timelessness to it.
Metaphor, true metaphor that feels like that both of journey and return, is *so* hard. I've read work by some excellent writers and their metaphor seems too clever by far sometimes, forced, so I think it might be hard for everyone.
The only metaphor of my own that I feel any sort of pride over is the last line from Boat: "His body a boat, his soul an anchor." Just because it really shouldn't make any freaking sense, but it does. Although, somedays, I don't even like that one, and it ceases to make any kind of sense at all.
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For me, metaphor that works when I read other people's work is the whole 'oooh yes' factor. It's the journey from one to the other that creates the path that I realize has always been there, just that I needed that gentle nudge to see it. Anything true has a timelessness to it.
Metaphor, true metaphor that feels like that both of journey and return, is *so* hard. I've read work by some excellent writers and their metaphor seems too clever by far sometimes, forced, so I think it might be hard for everyone.
The only metaphor of my own that I feel any sort of pride over is the last line from Boat: "His body a boat, his soul an anchor." Just because it really shouldn't make any freaking sense, but it does. Although, somedays, I don't even like that one, and it ceases to make any kind of sense at all.