Image-In This! Or Not

We've all heard the rules of imagery before--be concrete, be unique, be sensory, be partial, be specific and I've posted blogs on this before both here and on my Goodreads Restop blog: Wordy Wanderings Rest Stop, So, to cover new territory, I'm going to offer my final poems for National Poetry Month  a. In May and b. without a focus on imagery.

Because I'm a fan of looking at things from various angles and "showing the other side of things" knowing that few things have only two sides, here is an article from the American Academy of Poets that suggests we should move beyond concrete imagery: "In Praise of Abstraction".  

But to keep concrete imagery in the mix, I'll also share an article on imagery.  Here's an article that looks at imagery in the work of the poet and playwright Garcia Lorca:  The Imagery of Garcia Lorca

Now back to other forms of poetry. As we see in the work of ee cummings who famously brought the issue of sound, visuals, and abstractions to the forefront in modern poetry, imagery is not a requirement for poetry that could rely on experiential elements of abstraction vs. imagery.

To look at how this can work, I'll approach a subject in terms of imagery, then in terms of abstraction. Let me know which you prefer and why? Keep in mind, they will both be initial drafts that may lead to very different poems in the end.

(28 of 30)

A Desk

Images of an office supply store

 exploding 

come to mind

Yet that would not account

 for the books, piled spine in

spine out, 

genre graphic

to text book graphite

the gray dust

words bound

inspiration 

for discussion

sticky note pocked

question mark riddled

pile of unfilled papers

advising,

accumulating,

unpaid bill 

that I cannot account for

Coffee cup ringed with pen marks

but hosting only highlighters

a pair of scissors

and memories of the pens 

that marked it

Where are my notes 

for the lecture

I have to give

in an hour?

And now once more in abstraction!!

(29 of 30)

words withering waiting for a station in line

a memory of location a unleashing from the page

dogeared, shuffled, marked, stickied

read, reshuffled recalled

bound by glue by eyes that scan

follow the dotted lines of allusions

highlighters unused

pens off to parts on known

woodgrain printed on plastic 

glued beneath the weight of days

weeks semesters of appointments

lectures advising lunches with a half-life

computers with letters worn to memory

drafts written revisioned repeated

submitted rejected

waiting

for me

to find

them beneath the pile

Better 2 days late then never, right?

wry

tinge

challenge

a dozen doubled days plus five

a poem in a shell 

each nested

in advice

wrapped in articles

linked

letters

lines

images

ideas

set not in time

nor place

nor rhyme

but in flux

flexibility

fermenting

waiting for the 

aging process

to proclaim it

a heady bouquet

or vinegar fit

for naught