continued from part one.
Using Pattison as a text, Jamie taught that metaphor is “a collision between ideas that don’t belong together. It jams them together and leaves us to struggle with the consequences.” You’ll recall the example cited in yesterday’s blog column, part one of this series: “An army is a rabid wolf.” (Pattison)
Metaphor involves conflict. You’re comparing things that are not literally true, and for this reason, something like “A house is a dwellingâ€? is not a metaphor — it’s a dry statement of fact.
Jamie’s own writing is highly metaphorical, also making use of similes (you’ll remember from high school English that a simile is different from a metaphor in that a simile says “like” or “as”). In Jamie’s personal example, the song “Hell’s Adopted Mile,” he sings “I could wind down the road sideways just like a viper.”Â
To turn the line into “I could wind down the road sideways — a viper” would be to turn it from a simile into a metaphor. The simile doesn’t transfer focus from the first thing (in this example, “I”) to the second (“a viper). The simile is thus more intimate — we stay identified with the singer, “I.” Metaphor, on the other hand, takes the second term very seriously — “I” literally become “a viper.”
Again using our text, Jamie diagrammed the three metaphorical devices:
1.  Expressed identity
X is Y (ex: Pat Benatar “love is a battlefield”)
The Y of X (“the battlefield of love”)
X’s Y (“love’s battlefield”)
2. Qualifying metaphor
Adjectives that qualify nouns or adverbs/ verbs.
Ex: to sing blindly, angry clouds
3. Verbal metaphor
Formed by conflict between the verb and its subject and/or object: winter swallowed summer whole.
How to write metaphors and similes
Ask yourself two questions:
1. What characteristics does my subject have?
2. What else has those characteristics?
The answer to this second question tells you what possibilities you have for metaphors and similes. It even leads some people to say that love (the subject) is a battlefield (something else that has similar characteristics to “love”).
After taking in all this information, we were ready for a break. So before getting into small groups for a writing exercise in metaphor, Jamie had us take five (is that a cliche? Rats). The break enabled us to refill our coffee cups and grab some fruit or sweets. Mind you, I’d been sitting by the sweets the whole time, furtively taking a brownie or Oreo now and then, but this was a chance for everyone to do so, and also to mingle.
After about 15 minutes, Jamie had us join groups of 3-5 for a writing exercise.
stay tuned tomorrow for the conclusion of this article here on www.sojournmusic.com. Subscribe to our RSS Feed for auto updates if you’d like. Check out Jamie Barnes’ official website from our Helpful Links section and visit his Myspace page at myspace.com/jamiebarnes
