Metonymy: A Colorful Way of Saying Something

 

Poetry has always spoken in figurative language as the Bible and early manuscripts show, usually by way of metaphor (this IS that) or simile (this is LIKE that), but metonymy also speaks figuratively (opposite of literally.)

Every region has its own way of adding color to conversation.  If you grew up in the Southern U.S.A., as I did, you probably heard people talk in metonymy, which uses a word or two to replace something else.

For examples:

breeze – easy to do

collar – priest (noun) or (verb) arrest a suspect

crown – reigning king or queen (noun) or (verb) whack someone over the head

dish – deliciously good-looking woman

dough – money (unless you’re a baker)

foxy – sensually attractive person

frog – obstruction in throat

glitch – not working as smoothly as hoped

hot rod – super speedy automobile

hunk – good-looking, well-built man

lines – dialogue in a script, parts of a poem, or a pleasing shape

lip – sass, backtalk

nailed it – successfully accomplished

peachy – all is well – or pretending to be

pedal to the metal – go fast!

ride – car or other vehicle taking somebody somewhere

slice – wedge of pizza

star – actor whose work shines

suit – business person suitably attired

tub of lard – an insensitive, unkind slur for a very overweight person (Avoid these!)

tube – TV (or maybe an MRI machine that feels like a thermos.)

windows to the soul – eyes

Similar to metonymy is synecdoche, which uses part of something to refer to the whole thing. For instance, wheels as a synecdoche represents the whole vehicle or car.  

Teens and young adults often create synecdoche or metonymy as their private code with imaginative variations according to the locale. With that in mind, you see why the successful use of metonymy works in a poem or other manuscript mainly if your targeted readers understand that particular word or phrase.

This potential glitch in comprehension makes it trickier to come up with your own new ways of saying something. Even so, the context can make your meaning clear. So, invent. Have fun. Make up new words and phrases – just because you can!

 

Mary HarwellSayler

 

Reviving our Uncommonly Used Senses

 

True or not, many people, myself included, think common senses has long been declining. However, uncommon sense has seldom exceeded the norm – at least not beyond childhood when everything was new.

 

Children notice, explore, and investigate through their senses. When we were kids, we probably did too. We touched the roughness of asphalt pavement or dad’s day-old beard and felt the smoothness of a glass window or the softness of an elderly arm.

 

We noticed how the smell of air changed from before to after a storm, and we breathed in the odor of brownies baking or sweet clover on a summer day.

 

We tasted the sharp tang of a lemon and cold sweetness of ice cream, and we listened for the song of a wren or the sound of a coming train.

 

Our eyes took in everything beautiful, everything misshapen, everything out of place. Some of us even had the ability to sense the mood of a sibling, parent, or teacher, and we could readily recognize the variations of tone in a dog’s bark.

 

Lord willing, those senses remain available to most of us, assuming we choose to train ourselves to tap back into them. But, why bother?

 

Straining for imagination doesn’t add honesty or realism or provide the best way to identify with readers. However, simply paying attention to what we see, feel, taste, hear, smell, and sense will elevate our poetry – and, indeed, all genres of writing – from the common to the uncommon. Haiku, especially, requires observation, for example:

 

Heavy fog hung low,

shrouding the sky with a veil

ripped open by rain.

…

Memory flickers

like an old movie reel – off

and on or broken.

…

Longer poems can also result from paying attention:

 

Clarity

 

A moment of thankfulness intrigues me

by its rarity. What’s the problem here?

 

Sitting on the deck, I’m hardly aware

of the blue heron staring at the pond,

 

searching for some deep meaning.

Instead, I notice the sun glaring in my eyes,

 

the tin roof of the new house across the water

reflecting all around me, the pesky mosquito

 

buzzing for warmth before I slap a warning,

but then comes the dawning

 

of beauty,

of birdcall,

 

a hum of music,

a note of thankfulness.

 

Mary Harwell Sayler

from poetry book

A Gathering of Poems

 

 

Most of my favorite poets are close observers, such as those discussed in the previous posts linked below. Their brilliant descriptions and fresh figurative language make us want to read their poetry again and again:

 

Mary Oliver

Wendell Berry

T.S. Eliot

Rainer Maria Rilke

Charles Wright

Pattiann Rogers

 

If you’ve discovered poets whose poems ignite your enthusiasm for observation, or reawaken your senses, let us know in the Comments below. Thanks.

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How can a poem have texture?

 

When I think of texture, I think of cable-knit wool sweaters, beach sand, seashells, pine needles, corduroy – all touchable and recognizable by our fingertips. Obviously, we can’t do that with poetry, so how can we give our poems texture?

A definition might help. According to poets who know about such matters, texture can include figurative language (metaphor, simile, etc.) and rhyme or rhythm (musicality.)

To give you an example, let’s look at the well-textured opening of this famous poem that most of us studied in high school but didn’t have a clue about what it mean until now:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

by T. S. ELIOT

 

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent….

Read that verse aloud to get the full impact of its texture and beauty. Then read aloud this bare-bones version, picked clean of the good stuff:

Let us go,        

When evening is spread against sky

Like a patient on a table;

Let us go, through streets,

The retreats

Of nights in hotels

And restaurants:

Streets

Of intent….

See? Hear? Poems need more than flat sentences and totally understandable statements. They need texture – something to alert or even disturb the wandering mind.

This week, I’ve been reading a wonderful book, Painting Abstracts, by Rolina van Vliet. She talks about visual art, of course, but her definition, “What is texture?” helped me to understand more in relation to poetry:

“By texture we mean all the effects which disturb and penetrate the smooth… surface. It is the varied layers we use to construct our work…. It is how we vary the surface area using irregularities, emphases, rhythms, height, differences or roughness. Texture is a very strong artistic element….”

The author-artist goes on to list some of the things texture can accomplish:

• activates imagination, creativity and expression
• initiates experimentation and discovery
• stimulates the discovery of one’s own imagery, our artistic vocabulary
• lead to unexpected, interesting and surprising effects
• ensures variation, contrast, emphasis and dynamics

and more – always more as you revise your poems, play with lines, and experiment with the sounds and meanings of words.

 

©2021, Mary Sayler, poet-writer

 

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Worse metaphors ever!

A well-known poet once compared ice cream to cold paste to which I say, “Yuck!” Though not very poetic sounding, icy pudding could work as a comparison or maybe creamy snow, but the idea of paste as a delectable dish doesn’t work for anyone beyond the preschool age of paste-tasting.

As an avid reader of the Bible, I find a wealth of workable metaphors in its pages, particularly Psalms, because we cannot picture God without some kind of comparison to present the Unknown as the known.

That thought led me to metaphors frequently used for Jesus as “Lion” and “Lamb” – “Lion” for royalty, dignity, and strength and “Lamb” to represent obedience (in this case, to God the Father), meekness (as opposed to arrogance or self-centered willfulness), a warm covering, a supply of lanolin, and a nurturing source of food. Therefore, the connotations make a reasonably, relevantly good fit for things we want to say about Jesus.

In biblical times, a lamb was also used as a blood sacrifice for sin. So was an ox. So was a goat, but can you imagine those last two metaphors working? Not!

Metaphors need to make fresh connections.

Metaphors need to make sense.

Take the moon, for instance, and think of the ways people have tried to describe it in various stages – like a fingernail moon or the grin of a Cheshire cat. But when I tried to arrive at a new metaphor, I couldn’t think of a thing, so that’s where I began. Then, as I wrote, a poem about the process of finding metaphors for the moon came to me instead:

Sonnet Written Blankly in Stone

The moon says nothing new to me.

Its fullness does not harvest pumpkin

pies nor make a flat dinner plate to hold

a small round of Gouda. It would please

me to offer you a sphere of cheesecake

with blueberries as dark as dusk. If you

insist on paying, collect those opaque

coins from the money tree plant whose

real name I forgot. Or send me a card

of black paper with a white dot to mar

the middle at which each eye must stare

and stare. Everywhere I look, angels roll

away a big round stone as white as a full

moon hurled back to hold a pitch black sky.

Mary Sayler, ©2017, from Lost in Faith

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Figuring out figurative language

Would you rather someone show you something or tell you about it?

Both choices can be put to good use. For instance, if you want to teach other people about a subject unfamilar to them, you'd explain as literally as possible the topic you're addressing. But, if you want the person to experience what you've been through or have come to believe, you'll need to show them.

A figure of speech figures on showing this in terms of that.

When someone speaks figuratively, they’re using some kind of picture or figure to show an abstract concept or something that cannot otherwise be seen. For instance, “love” cannot be envisioned without a picture or symbol such as that big red Valentine heart commonly used to show it.

Figurative language enlivens all genres of writing. Not only does a figure of speech add imagery, it usually uses less words than if you were trying to explain.

For example, 1 Corinthians 13 takes a whole chapter to define true love. Even then, the apostle Paul tossed in some metaphors to explain what love is not: “sounding brass” (i.e., an overbearing boom!) or a “tinkling cymbal” (too faint to be witnessed or heard.)

When someone speaks literally, they rely on factual data and dictionary definitions. Using 1 Corinthians 13 again, but this time for examples of literal speech, we read: “Love is kind” and “Love never fails.” Those statements accurately describe the standard for love, but literal definitions just don’t show what love is the way a loud, headache-producing gong figuratively shows what love is not!

Literal language depends on dictionary definitions and, often, flat statements that can come across as blah, boring, or uninspired.

Figurative language needs pictures to show This in terms of That.

For instance, if I wanted to tell you about the beauty of the evening sky, I’d have trouble doing that without figurative language such as “the lavendar film of sunset.”

Or to describe the big, fat, white clouds on the horizon, I might figuratively speak of “cauliflower clouds.” (If those clouds were literally made of cauliflower, wow! We could eat the sky!)

To include figurative speech in your poems and other writings, figure on using:

Metaphor – This IS That, such as “God is a strong tower.” If you said, “God is strong” or “God protects me the way a strong tower would,” those flat statements would be literally true. Literally speaking, though, God is not actually a strong tower to be worshipped. But, figuratively speaking, I can truthfully say, God is a strong tower to me, and you’ll immediately get the picture.

Simile – Similar to metaphor, simile points out similarities. Simile says This is LIKE That. For example, “The puppy is like a tornado.” Similes can also use “as.” i.e., “That dog is as active as a tornado.”

Cliché – once-fresh similes gone stale, for example, “quick as a bunny,” “sly as a fox,” or “hard as a rock.” However, you can have fun playing with a cliché until it becomes fresh again by substituting another picture for the faded one. Since this takes time, thought, and observation, it’s not as quick as a computer search.

Symbol – a concrete object used to symbolize or illustrate a concept, belief, or principle. For example, a flag symbolizes patriotism and loyalty to a particular country. The six-pointed Star of David is a symbol for Judaism, and a cross symbolizes Christianity.

To be effective, figurative language focuses on one picture at a time. Therefore, each surrounding word needs to be consistent with that image. These aren’t to be just any images, though, but ones your readers will instantly envision and understand.

Mary Harwell Sayler, ©2017. For more on figurative language, these books will help: A Poet's Guide to Writing Poetry and The ABC's of Poetry: A Dictionary for Children and for Fun.
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