Creating Imagery

Big Brown Clumps
Wild, Awed, Attacked
Following elephant tracks.
Wild went this way
Awed went that
Attacked went this way, that way and back.

Pacaderms pounding
Elephant trunks
Pounding and pounding
The horn and the tusks.
Follow and follow
If follow you must,
But when following elephants
Watch out for the big brown clumps!

I’m sure some persnickety poetry professors will cringe when I say it, but without the “big brown clumps” there would be no poetry. A big brown clump is an image, and creating images is one of the most important moves in the poetry game. Using vivid imagery is a powerful way to make words stand out.

An image is a word or phrase that appeals to our senses. They are things we can see, taste, touch, hear, or smell. It can be as beautiful as a ballerina in blue, as grubby as a dog digging in the dirt, or as whimsical as a girl riding a bubble.

Here are four simple steps you can use to help your child write an image poem.

Step 1: Have your child choose an image that fascinates them. For example… Spiders

Step 2: Ask your child to make a list of words and phrases that come to mind when they think of their image. For example…

Webs
Hairy
Dangle
Crawling
Creepy
Fangs
Eating Flies
Crunch
Itsy-bitsy
Long legs
Bug catcher

Step 3: Help your child find playful ways of arranging their words into three or four lines. For example…

Step 4: Have your child begin and end their poem with the original image.

Spiders
Web dangle fangs.
Creepy crawling legs.
Bug catchers crunch.
Eating itsy-bitsy flies.
Spiders

Explain to your child that not all poems need to rhyme. The poem in the above example plays with images without using rhyme.

Images can be heard as well as seen. A good example of a creepy image is found in the track, The Bogeyman Band, from the CD Kiss The Fish.

To read about Creating Comparisons, click here.

To return back to the Poetry Resource page, click here.