Tzara
Continental
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2005
- Posts
- 7,608
In the last poem I posted in the 5 Senses thread, I accidentally put a sound cue (distant music) down for the sense of smell. It was a mistake, of course, but when Angie pointed it out to me, she asked "do you really want us to smell music?"
I didn't, and changed/corrected the cue, but it got me thinking about synesthesia--how some people experience input to one sense as another sense. Sound as color, for example. Isaac Newton would see colors with certain musical notes, as did the composer Alexander Scriabin. Synesthesia is also a literary technique, where one describes something perceived by one sense (vision, for example) in terms of another sense (say, touch). Something like The dawn stroked my cheek.
Here are some examples from various poets:
So, here's the idea for this thread--try and write a poem in which you make use of synesthesia, or even just try to write a metaphor or simile that uses synesthesia. I find it kind of difficult to do; perhaps you all will be better at it that I am.
I didn't, and changed/corrected the cue, but it got me thinking about synesthesia--how some people experience input to one sense as another sense. Sound as color, for example. Isaac Newton would see colors with certain musical notes, as did the composer Alexander Scriabin. Synesthesia is also a literary technique, where one describes something perceived by one sense (vision, for example) in terms of another sense (say, touch). Something like The dawn stroked my cheek.
Here are some examples from various poets:
- To the bugle, every color is red. (Emily Dickinson)
- Nothing disturbed it; not the owl that came / rowing out at noon, soundless as fur (Amy Clampitt)
- If I could touch you / my hands would begin to sing (Mary Oliver)
- The [tenor's] high quavers / That hold like splashes of light on the dark water (Robert Pinsky)
So, here's the idea for this thread--try and write a poem in which you make use of synesthesia, or even just try to write a metaphor or simile that uses synesthesia. I find it kind of difficult to do; perhaps you all will be better at it that I am.
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