Poppin’ Fresh Personification
On a recent road trip the kids and I became bored beyond tears. To pass the time of passing town after town, we practiced some personification; disguised as a word game - it was summer vacation after all.
Personification is almost self-explanatory, but for those who would like one, my personal definition is: Giving human traits, abilities or feelings to non-human things.
Even though itÂ’s a simple process, it is important. Given those elements, I decided to have fun with it and I came up with a writerÂ’s recipe of sorts.
PoppinÂ’ Fresh Personifications
-Take one non-human thing (like an owl, orphan or emotion).
-Mix with one human thing (like Uncle HermanÂ’s scowl, skin, or toenails)
-Blend and bake to taste.
-Serves scads of readers.
Use in poetry, essays, short stories, and novels. Can also be served on toast points, but arenÂ’t as effective.
Since we donÂ’t have a mouth-watering picture to go with our recipe, let us allow our imagery to take its place.
An owl sat guard
outside my window.
Moonlight lit up his
feathers and face so he
looked like Uncle Herman,
with his scraggly scowl
and parchment skin.
He demanded like my uncle,
too. Who?
Who were you with tonight?
Who brought you home?
Who did you kiss tonight?
Who?
Holly Bliss (from a work in progress)
It would be a good idea to add this to your list of poetry practice through play (see previous article on this subject).
Even simple tools like personification can have a huge impact on your writing.
© 2006 Holly Bliss. All Rights Reserved. This document may be freely redistributed in its unedited form and on the condition that all copyright references are kept intact along with the hyperlinked URLs.
About the Author: Using her writing as paint on the canvas of her life, Holly Bliss is an eclectic writer, newsletter editor and an author on
http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for
Poetry.
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