“With the jungle cats, lions and tigers, leopards and cheetahs
For gazelle you get chased like a zebra, they blaze cheeba-cheeba
And dominate the weaker on the street
Hungry bellies only love what they eat and it’s hard to compete
When they smile with your heart in they teeth”
- Mos Def, Habitat
When miners are digging for metals they are looking for precious veins of ore. A vein can run extremely deep and travel a great distance, twisting and curving, folding back on itself. Hitting the start of a vein can be extremely profitable for a miner. It’s no different for a writer. Sometimes it takes only one real good metaphor and writing in the vein of that metaphor to create an entire lyric. Random metaphor creation is fine and can give some startling results but some pretty interesting things can happens if you stick in a metaphoric vein for longer than a phrase.
In the above example Mos Def is using a jungle metaphor for the street. People are lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, gazelles, and zebra. By writing in the vein of the jungle Mos Def has mined his metaphor to get it to pop out all kinds of messages and meanings. First he is telling you about the hierarchy of the street from behind his metaphor. The jungle is a place where the stronger pray on the weaker, like the street (that’s the connecting idea). By staying with his metaphor he reveals yet another interesting point: you consume what you love on the street. That’s kind of a startling revelation, that on the street you might only love someone out of hunger but simultaneously be consuming them, which would eventually kill them. But the real home run is the last line, “it’s hard to compete, When they smile with your heart in they teeth.” Now you are the gazelle or zebra, and the lions and tigers and leopards and cheetahs are sinking their teeth into your heart with every grin. You only see you’ve been eaten when they smile. Pretty amazing. The streets have been compared to a jungle before (check out The Message by Grand Master Flash: “It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.”) but never have they “smiled with your heart in their teeth.” All because Mos Def stayed in the vein of his metaphor. Here’s how you can do it. Let’s use Mos Def’s metaphor: The city is a jungle.
Creating a Worksheet
Now we’re going to begin to tie many of the techniques we’ve worked on these past few weeks together. Start with your initial idea and do an object writing on it. Choose one side of the metaphor, in this case either the city or the jungle.
1. Idea Generation
Remember, no more than 10 minutes using as many of your senses as possible. I chose the jungle:
The humid air makes everything stick to me. My shirt is sucked onto my body. The heat comes in waves, is hot like breath. The jungle’s breath. The squawking of monkey’s in the towering canopy above. Chattering cries. The trees seem to reach up forever forming a perfect lid on this thick air. An air-tight seal in steam and sweat. Even plants have teeth as they chew at my skin. Hot drops of water from the weeping trees, it’s dark here, even in the middle of the day. Fear hides in every shadow. Are we being stalked? A panther? The stillness is worse, what you can’t see can hurt you.
2. Make a List of Interesting Words or Phrases
humid air shirt sucked onto my body
the jungle’s breath squawking
towering canopy chattering, crying
a perfect lid an air-tight seal in steam and sweat
weeping trees dark in the middle of the day
fear hides in shadows plants have teeth
stalked
3. Two Questions Modified: Super-Imposing
We just spent 10 minutes elaborating on what characteristics the jungle has so we’ve already answered the first question of metaphor making. We are trying to cross the jungle with the city so the question we must now ask is “what in the city shares these qualities?” Look back at our list. The way we are going to accomplish this is by taking the action words and images from the jungle and super-imposing them on the city.
Humid air doesn’t get us much, nor does shirt sucked onto my body. But starting with the jungle’s breath we can maybe get somewhere. The city has breath too, it’s hot and full of exhaust. The squawking in the city is no longer the monkey’s but could be car horns and sirens. The towering canopy is no longer trees but sky scrapers. The chattering and cries are from people, maybe the collage of languages one can hear in most larger cities. The weeping trees could be the drainpipes that still spout rusty water after the rain. Darkness in the middle of the day is now the result of the towering buildings, indeed in Manhattan the sun shines on the street for just a few hours a day. And shadows can be dangerous in the city too, murderers, thieves, or muggers can be waiting, or even stalking you. Now we are ready to write in the vein The City is a Jungle.
The City is a Jungle
The city is a jungle. It’s humid exhale sucks my shirt onto my body. Horns and sirens squawk and cry out. Above, a towering canopy of sky-scrapers block the sun forming an air-tight seal in steam and sweat. People chatter in their native tongue while drain pipes weep rusty water. Fear hides in every shadow here. Panthers pine for your purse. And the stillness is worse, what you can’t see can hurt you.
That worked out pretty nice. Now it’s your turn.
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