Connotation Exercise

Describe a building, person, event, object, or some aspect of our society in a surprising way. Mix SPECIFIC NOUNS for the concrete things you describe: use ABSTRACT ADJECTIVES with heavy connotative weight to describe the emotion you want to convey. Use Theodore Roethke's "Dolor" as your model.

First: List 10-20 specific nouns that relate to the concrete thing you are describing

Second: Decide which emotion best fits this place/person/object/societal aspect/building. Stay away from standard emotions (hospital = sad; school = social). Try to be surprising, yet accurate.

Third: List 5-10 abstract adjectives/nouns that carry the emotion you want to convey.

Fourth: Write the poem, intermixing the two sets in surprising ways.

Example: Print Shop = torture

CONCRETE ABSTRACT

Ink binding machine oppressive cluttered

Rollers folding machine hideous deranged

Press copy machine bizarre piercing

Solvent tables archaic acrid

reams of paper putty knife putrid tortuous

brilliant colors rags medieval painful

paper cutter old fashioned type blocks rank acidic

"Printing Pressure"

The printer hunches over his press,

bent with flashing knife, pressing

black ink into dark rollers that will

multiply in archaic ways

not with clean electricity, but

with rank ink, acidic solvents, tortuous

cranks that raise reams of heavy paper

to the chain delivery. Rags

dangle from pockets, wiping grey smudges

in bizarre patterns.

Blocks hang

from racks holding medieval leaden letters

backwards, inverted, deranged,

but he saves them for occasions that demand

speciality.

For now, he cuts metal plates,

burns image with acid,

straps it, tightens screws and

begins to print

offset.

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