IMAGERY IN POETRY( ready to start?)

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Ship Killer

Dark and hulking,
patient just beneath the sparkling water,
a weight of eons rearing up from darker depths,
crowned with garnet,
mountain-solid underneath
swaying forests of green-brown kelp
and irresistible high tide.

About This Poem

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Earth Vicinity (within a five light-year radius), ZZC

Favorite Poets: John Donne, T.S. Eliot, Serendipity, Emily Dickenson, Kailashana, Charles Bukowski, Kabir, Rett, Dalton, W. B. Yeats, William Blake, Rainer Maria Rilke, and many other Neopoet poets; Neopoet has heavily influenced my poetry and my ability to write it well.

Comments

wesley snow

8 years ago

But this seems very direct and clear imagery to me.

Nothing "indirect" about it. What am I missing?

Race_9togo

7 years 12 months ago

Yes, It did

Perhaps because I had already put the image in your mind, with the title.
Told you I am not good with indirect imagery. I've tried to use sound, sight and even emotional state to indirectly describe an object...and absolutely failed, apparently.

jane210660

7 years 12 months ago

Oooohhhh

Like it, like it, yes I do.
Just ready and waiting for the odd siren to come its way.
Love the contrast between dark, shadowy, sinister and sparkling waters.
Wanders off singing siren sort of songs.
Jxx

Candlewitch

7 years 12 months ago

hello Jim,

it seems to me that this beautiful rock is a treasure off nature. but it is a hidden danger to water craft. I think the imagery and structure are very pleasing to the mind and eye!

brightest of blessings,
Cat

scribbler

7 years 12 months ago

I kinda

agree with wes about this one. Everything seems clearly spelled out with little left to the imagination

Race_9togo

7 years 12 months ago

Here's the thing,

I have no idea how to relate a ship-killing piece of stone to, say, a book, or a lollipop.
I know, I know, I'm being facetious, but I just don't understand, I guess. I mean, there's no direct imagery in the piece that I can see, except in the title, and I've changed that, so now what? I have used shading, color, emotional state, socio-political comment, even secondary non-direct images to build a picture of a thing without naming it. I've strongly implied what it does and how it does it, still without being direct or explicit, and I still can't get to where I need to be.
Frustrating.

Race_9togo

7 years 12 months ago

Perhaps

The title was at fault?

scribbler

7 years 12 months ago

The problem with inferred or indirect imagery

is once something is described in detail it become plain imagery. To carry this to the extreme you could have condensed the whole stanza to "the ship killer awaits"....this would leave the reader to think it might be anything from Moby Dick to a guided missile. So there Is a line between imagery and inferred imagery in order for it to be effective.Again to your sample. If you want to be sure the reader knows it's a submerged stone in the ocean you could say something like "The ship killer, of earth's bones lurks beneath". This gives the essentials and leaves the reader free to picture the stone's surroundings....does this help?