Poem of The Week~ Mirrored- The shadows of past~by Poet Raja Rajan

Famous Author Charles Dickens, in the opening to 'A Christmas Carol', says "But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile."While teaching classical poetry I found that many students expressed  a certain degree of fear and trepidation when asked to try to write a poem but when given writing models and guidelines, compositions which were unique, at times hilarious and funny but definitely creative, were produced. This maybe common where English is a second language, but writing poetry is a skill, an art, and a natural talent. One guideline was the task of ‘identifying similes’ used as a  poetic device’. This led  to the recognition of ‘figurative language’ employed by a writer to describe something in comparison going beyond the literal meaning. Figurative language’ though not meant to be interpreted in a word by word sense but used, to point out differences  in enough ways so that the similarities of objects compared became interesting, unique or effectively surprising as the following lines would entertain the reader in their simple description:

‘Overnight , snow had fallen covering the field like a large white blanket

brown patches here and there looking like a nutty fruitcake’

 Developing poetical forms from simple to classic, figurative language merges into masterpieces  such as this exquisite haiku written by Poet  Raja Rajan from India. I would like to present ‘Mirrored –The Shadows of Past’ as Poem of The Week’

Mirrored- The Shadows of Past

Like a Zitherist,

Running vicious circles; the

Past Mirrored before me

Mirrored- The Shadows of Love and Memories

Part by fate, Met after

years; Love not lost.Mirrored

memories danced blind.

Read more poems by Raja Rajan at  http://thealchemycritics.blogspot.com/