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Scars (indirect imagery)

Red furrows plowed into the pale clay
Grow into mounds of silver stones.

Editing stage: 

Comments

It's lovely. I am obviously missing the point of indirect imagery.

W. H. Snow

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Take red furrows, that can bring several images to mind - are they red because the soil is red? Are they red because much blood has been spilt there in the past? Has a burial mound just been ploughed - again red referring to blood. Are they red because a red tractor ploughed them? - Ok, that one is a bit tenuous.
I think you are a bit like me and tend to over think things. I could be completely wrong, but if I really get under the expression' indirect imagery', I get into conflict with imagery per se. To some extent, all imagery is both direct and indirect in my book.
Stan will qualify this, but I wonder if covert/hidden imagery would be another way of thinking of it.
I am just reflecting out loud here, forgive me if I'm barking up the wrong tree.
Jx

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I sort of hijacked your thread then.
I love the imagery in this, I can see several scenes, my favourite and not what you probably intended, is a burial mound being reconstructed after being ploughed up.
I also like the simple rural image of an old tractor, churning up all those stones and making a small mountain of them.
What was in your mind?
Jx

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When I wrote this, I was going to call it "scratches." I thought about cuts and scratches on the human body and how similar they are to the cuts and scratches in the earth made by agriculture.

author comment

being an ex-cutter, the same images that you refer to, came to my mind. excellent work. fantastic imagery!

always, Cat

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I love that.
I was just too obtuse to see it.
Now you highlight it, it's obvious.
Jx

------------
Remember we are a workshop site.
Don't forget to offer critique on poems you read.

the indirect imagery's job is to take the reader to different and many directions. These two lines have done this successfully. The author then has the freedom to explain his/her intention or not.

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But what do the silver stones refer to?

They are the ropes of hardened thick skin that form scars.

author comment

I have a 16 inch scar on my leg, 2- 1 inch scars on my chin and a bunch of other scares scattered about (dang! makes it sound like I'm some kind of mercenary or something lol) But all my scars are either pink or white. lol

I have a scar on my neck from where I was impaled with a chair leg when I was three. It is white but has a silvery sheen to it in the light.

author comment

Guess I don't spend enough time looking at my leg in direct light. Too busy looking at pretty legs I guess lmao...........stan

Quadruple bypass will do that for you. It's a big one. I also have three scars like holes where the tubes came out.

W. H. Snow

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Learn how, teach others.
The NeoPoet Mentor Program
http://www.neopoet.com/mentor/about

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