Day 12 Imagery
![](graphics/shoe_polish.JPG) Imagery is any series of words
used to create a sensory experience -- sound, sight, touch, smell, taste. Such
images can be created by using figures of speech such as similes,
metaphors, personification, and assonance. Images can also be
created by relatable action words or onomatopoeias that trigger
responses in the reader’s mind. Imagery helps the reader imagine
the sensations described as they are related through the language
of the author. A simplistic view is that one can think of the
imagery as “painting a picture with words.”
Imagery is also the term used to refer
to the making (or re-creation) of any experience in the mind
-- auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, kinesthetic,
organic. It is a cognitive process employed by most, if not all,
humans. When thinking about a previous or upcoming event, people
commonly use imagery. For example, one may ask, “What color
are your living room walls?” The answer to this question
is commonly retrieved by using imagery (i.e., by a person mentally
“seeing” one’s living room walls).
- What kind of imagery is central to this
poem?
- How is the imagery related to the emotional
concerns of the poem?
- How do the subsidiary images relate to
the central images?
- From what point in time does the speaker
view the subject matter of the poem? What has happened to him
in the interval?
Examine this analysis
from Gale Research for more insight into this poem.
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Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering,
breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
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Your Turn:
Reflect on an experience that triggers your own personal imagery.
Begin by clustering that incident, triggering memories for each
of your senses, even though you may not choose to include each
sense in your final poem. Polish your images into a short poem
which uses your personal imagery to re-create that experience.
Be prepared to share.
Listen to Hayden read this
poem.
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