{"id":2460,"date":"2010-09-24T17:42:37","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T21:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2010-09-27T20:56:49","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T00:56:49","slug":"weekly-prompt-engaging-the-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/24\/weekly-prompt-engaging-the-image\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Prompt: Engaging the Image"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Using Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/bcs.bedfordstmartins.com\/virtualit\/poetry\/fish_elements.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Fish<\/a>\u201d as a model, write at least 20 lines of detailed, concrete observation that describes a single object.\u00a0 Move past the obvious and think instead how you can describe the thing as if seeing it for the first time.\u00a0 Using tools like sensory detail, metaphor, and simile, defamiliarize the object to the extent that it becomes an object of wonder\u2014terror, even.\u00a0 Hone your powers of observation by delving into the fantastical, allowing your subconscious to reveal what\u2019s most strange or troubling about your subject of scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>Work with all of the senses (including the imagination) to allow your reader to really <em>see <\/em>the object\u2014and then to see it again, even more closely.\u00a0 Avoid abstractions and \u201cI\u201d statements, communicating instead a sense of the \u201cI\u201d through the types of concrete detail included in the poem.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">After finishing your initial draft, return to the piece and think how you can invest specific details with greater emotional resonance (ie. in describing the worn laces of a man\u2019s boot, how can you actually address the nature of his relationship with his father?) through word choice, tone, and pacing.\u00a0 Expand on one (or two) of your most promising details and develop an original, full-fledged image (for example, the severed ears in Carolyn Forche&#8217;s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/archive\/poem.html?id=180106\">The Colonel<\/a>,\u201d or the lantern-heads in Victoria Chang&#8217;s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cstone.net\/~poems\/lantecha.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Lantern Festival<\/a>\u201d), one that functions as objective correlative to the subject matter of the poem.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2463\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2463\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/alaska-rainbow-trout.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2463\" title=\"alaska-rainbow-trout\" src=\"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/alaska-rainbow-trout-300x129.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"129\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/alaska-rainbow-trout-300x129.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/alaska-rainbow-trout.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2463\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alaskan Rainbow Trout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s \u201cThe Fish\u201d as a model, write at least 20 lines of detailed, concrete observation that describes a single object.\u00a0 Move past the obvious and think instead how you can describe the thing as if seeing it for the first time.\u00a0 Using tools like sensory detail, metaphor, and simile, defamiliarize the object to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[13],"tags":[412,153,72,56,71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2471,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions\/2471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}