40 Lit Mags Accepting Previously Published Poetry
with a guest essay by Kelly Grace Thomas on metaphor and reshaping a poem's gravity
This week, Kelly Grace Thomas provides guidance on creating fresh metaphors in our poetry and offers an exercise to generate new, impactful metaphors using everyday objects and personal experiences.
You never know how great or shitty you are at explaining things until you have taught high school English. As a new teacher, I stood in front of the board, pits sweating, the projector wheezing its hot breath, my voice shaky as I tried to convey the concept of a thesis statement.
My students looked like a sea of dead trout, eyes glassy, mouths hung half open. The minute hand ticked loudly into a new hour as their attention slipped out the door. My explanations, no matter how hard I tried, felt as bland as dry toast. Translating the information into teenagers was a moving target, and my aim was failing.
Desperate for a way to reach them, I threw our metaphors like a hail mary.
A thesis statement is a long hallway that connects all the other rooms.
A thesis statement is like the egg in the batter; it holds everything together.
A thesis statement is like the spine; remove it, and the whole body collapses.
Mouths closed, students looked up from the cell phones they were hiding and the notebooks they were doodling in; a few nodded. Each face slowly blinked like a street light at dusk. The tighter, more specific the metaphors, the brighter the room became.
Soon, finding the best metaphor became a kind of game. I couldn’t get enough, I stood in front of my students, trying each on, gauging reactions, and revising each comparison to be as succinct and specific as possible. In time, students were engaged and excited. They not only understood the material but remembered what I had said about it.
Metaphor is a universal translator. It can take a reader from 0-60 in a matter of syllables because they succinctly reshape our understanding of the circumstantial or emotional landscape. Metaphors build a world we can touch, smell, and taste, offer emotional pitch, provide gravity to define the laws of the poem, and refine our understanding to say this was like that, and through that comparison, we become part of the process. For example: I can write I have a complicated relationship with my body, but there are so many interpretations of what that means. If I use metaphor to say, my body has always been a window I cannot throw myself from. The reader now understands both the urgency— and denial— of escape. Can compare the body to a window—transparent and breakable—while still not being able to break free.
Metaphor is what echoes after I have read a poem—because metaphors ask the reader to be active. They take our hearts and hands and show the world or wants in the quickest way possible—by building on what we already feel and know.
Most people don’t give metaphors enough credit; maybe this is because when we are taught metaphors, we are taught through cliches (Love is a red, red rose or Life is a rollercoaster). But a tight metaphor—one that conveys a clear idea, emotion, or relationship—can completely transform a poem or even a collection.
Below is an exercise for crafting new, surprising metaphors.
On Creating Fresh Metaphors
A metaphor has two parts: the tenor and the vehicle. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the object whose attributes are borrowed.
One of the issues I have found is that most of our tenors are already predetermined. They are the subjects we are writing about, our characters, the setting, etc. It is the vehicle that we want to make fresh and new.
Metaphor Mashup
Make two columns: A & B. In Column A, list things that are a part of you or your life (and any other tenor). In Column B, list objects or images (or possible vehicles). If you have trouble thinking of things, simply look around.
EXAMPLE
Column A Column B
heart flickering bulb
house landfill
your mother’s silence haunted house
crooked teeth tarot deck
school bus stop
country Pacific Ocean
father rusty anchor
After you have your two columns, you can start playing with a metaphor combination. Take something from Column A and combine it with something in Column B to get a new metaphor.
For example:
Your heart is a haunted house.
Your mother’s silence is the Pacific Ocean.
Your father is a flickering bulb.
Remember: don’t underestimate the material around you. I have come up with some of the best metaphors by looking out the window or around my office: Is your ego a staple remover? Your dreams a burnt pan?
Join Kelly for The Magic and Mining of Metaphor on January 20th from 10 am-1 pm PT with Write or Die! In this workshop, you will walk away with concrete, replicable techniques, as well as three new drafts. For more writing tips and monthly poetry workshops, visit my Substack: The Creative Crossover with Kelly Grace Thomas.
40 Lit Mags Accepting Previously Published Poetry
Since so many magazines have different ideas about what ‘previously published’ means, I’ve gone ahead and included the specifics for each magazine. I’ve also noted any that are currently open for submissions along with all of the usual info.
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