Poetry, example. In focus: IMAGERY

modern concrete
 Eddie Tay

i try for colour
but the city’s concrete does not allow me
concrete is modern as airports
bridges pavements and the river still
a river and functional
the cars gleam silver like fishes
i try for colour
but the city’s concrete does not allow me the new hermit
a snail of a shell is modern and not seen
like wi fi
he lives within a mountain
of pigeon flats
holes in an economy of a few million snails
by the bank of pale water
the cars gleam silver like fishes
i try for colour
but the city’s concrete does not allow me
so here’s the housing project in chunks
with mended words
the cars gleam silver like fishes

-published in the Asiatic Literary Journal

 

Eddie Tay teaches creative writing and poetry at the Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research is in the area of creative writing as well as anglophone literatures of Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. He is the author of 3 poetry collections, the most recent being The Mental Life of Cities (Chameleon Press, 2010). He is also the author of a monograph entitled Colony, Nation, and Globalisation: Not at Home in Singaporean and Malaysian Literature (HKU Press; NUS Press, 2011). _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

WHAT CAN I TAKE AWAY FROM THE ABOVE POEM

1. What kind of feeling is the writer trying to portray?

2. Notice the consistency of imagery used - in what ways do the imagery

 (such as cars gleam silver like fishes) help create a sense of life and lifelessness?

3. Think about the kinds of imagery you can use to create a unified and coherent sense of loss, life, love, belonging, unbelonging or wholesomeness etc etc (the mood of your own poem)


All the best,
Your editors.