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November 10, 2016

Poetry Friday--Fun With Similes

Last Friday, Tara Smith, at A Teaching Life, shared an autumn poem, "Toward the Solstice" by Mark Perlberg. The poet wrote:
We raked the leaves into shifting piles on the lawn,
scooped them into deep round baskets
and spilled them in the street against the curb.
When I read these lines I remembered the bushel baskets that were standard in everyone's garage in the 1950s. Some may have known them as peach baskets, but they were used for carrying apples, corn, and all sorts of other things. Where I grew up on Long Island, NY, they were used for clams or crabs. And, of course, for moving raked leaves to the burn pile.

I left a comment on Tara's blog,
"scooped them into deep round baskets" What a forgotten memory the line brought back to me. No black plastic in those days. I can only imagine the poets of today writing about leaves in garbage bags:

scooped them into heavy-duty trash bags
lined them up against the curb
like a wall on the Mexican border
discouraging kids from taking that leap...
Of course, when I wrote the comment last week, the election was still foremost in my mind, but, I also got to thinking about other ways to describe ugly black plastic bags full of leaves and thus embarked on a fun afternoon of similes.

Here are three more:
scooped them into heavy-duty trash bags
lined them up like jelly beans at the curb--
the giant black ones that tasted too strongly
of licorice and no one wanted to eat--


scooped them into trash bags
compacted the leaves thoroughly
then lined them up along the road
like Babci's kiszka in a frying pan


scooped them into heavy-duty trash bags,
knotted their convenient red drawstrings
so they looked like a row of be-ribboned
black cats on a vintage Halloween postcard

The first one is obvious. Does anyone know about the second one? Babci (pronounced Bop-chee) is grandmother in Polish. Kiszka (pronounced keesh-ka) is a Polish blood sausage (something I never would touch, but that my father loved--I shudder to remember the look and smell of it).

Here's a postcard to illustrate the third (but has only one be-ribboned cat):


After four similes, I ran out of ideas. Metaphors didn't seem right at all for plastic trash bags. That's an exercise for another time and another topic. Neither similes nor metaphors appear in my poems, for the most part, I'm a haiku person after all. In haiku a trash bag is a trash bag. Period.
trashbags at the curb
the annual blister
on my palm

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Jama is the Poetry Friday Round-Up host this week, so I'll meet you at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

30 comments:

  1. Fun to see your similes, Diane. I think the first jelly bean one is my favorite, as it prompted an emotional reaction (I hate black licorice).

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    1. I'm with you on that, Jama, I find black licorice distinctly unappetizing.

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  2. Love your similes, Diane, though as it happens I love black jellybeans!

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    1. That's why there's so many different flavors to choose from--everyone likes something different.

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  3. Diane, I am always amazed at the approaches you take to reveal your poetic style. The first simile with those lines, lined them up against the curb/like a wall on the Mexican border. Let's hope your before election thought is tempered in the months to come.

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    1. I would say it has to be tempered, the border is more than 1000 miles and the cost would phenomenal.

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  4. I love that you are a haiku person who tries on all these similes! The black bags remind me of a poem I wrote about my mother. She's a seamstress, and made many dresses for me, which, during college, I bagged up and left at the curb for the donation truck. Oh how I have grieved those dresses! Anyhow, I love your final haiku! Thank you, Diane. xo

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    1. Oh, Irene, what a sad story. I regret tossing out my grandmothers old crochet patterns, but I was young and foolish then.

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  5. After Tara's post, I was reminded of the burning of the leaves, although I know now that it wasn't good for the air. You've made us wonder at this new environmental hazard, that black plastic bag that will never go away! Our Ace hardware has re-cyclable brown paper bags for the lawn work, for composting. I love the "black cats on a vintage postcard".

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    1. Most people now use the brown paper bags, but there are still those who'll stuff a plastic bag.

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  6. I enjoyed this reverie of trash bag imagery, Diane. I'm glad to see the election results haven't stolen your poet's heart.

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    1. Actually, it did crush my heart. The similes were written last Sunday. I'm thinking of taking a few weeks off from poetry. We'll see.

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  7. Such creativity - I always love the way you encourage and inspire me to step back and look at things in a different way.

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    1. Thanks, Jane, I'm happy my work does that for you.

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  8. What Jane said...your poetic inventiveness (and fearlessness) awes me.

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    1. Fearlessness isn't a word I'd use. Foolhardy is more like it!

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  9. Great exploration. You could have gone toward leaf blowers or the great trucks with leaf vacuums. We use barrels here or paper bags.

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    1. I love those leaf vacuums, but I haven't seen them around here in a long time. The town must have thought they weren't worth it.

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  10. I love the way you took a comment from a post and created a delightful and funny group of similes. This looks like it would be great fun for kids to do. Thanks for making me smile today. I needed it.

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    1. Keep smiling, Margaret, it may be a bumpy road, but there is sure to be something different at the end. I hope...

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  11. My FAVORITE part of Poetry Friday is the inspiration. I keep a running list of all the ideas I get from everyone's poems and thoughts and ideas and reviews and interviews. I love how your inspiration came from those lines and memory. Bravo!

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    1. Smart idea, Linda. I wish I were organized. I may make a note on a piece of scrap paper, but most times it gets written over to the point where the scrap demands to be thrown away.

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  12. Each of the these intonations of the leaf-filled trash bags is thought provoking, Diane. Both the jelly bean simile and the straight up haiku spoke to me. Thanks for sharing your process - fascinating. =)

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    1. I prefer the haiku, too, if only because I can remember the rawness of a rake blister.

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  13. The similes are fun, but your haiku is perfect!

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  14. You ARE a haiku person -- that one's your best. (Although I will do you the service of eating all your black jelly beans!!)

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  15. I love where you ended up, Diane. The final haiku brought a much-needed smile to my face.

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  16. Bless you, my haiku friend, and loved meandering through the similes,too.

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  17. I enjoyed reading through your process. When I first married & moved to the country, I looked out the window one afternoon to see the yard on fire -- Mark was burning leaves. It was so humid here there was supposedly no danger. Nothing bad happened but it was disconcerting!

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