Study of a Sidewalk

An Exercise from My Writer’s Notebook — Imagery & Personification

A concrete tongue lisps a path between my house and the road — licks stalks of grass springing up outside its grey mouth — laps at rain puddles, quenching thirst on its way to the Big City

©2012 Lori Carlson. All Rights Reserved.

This exercise in Imagery & Personification comes from my writer’s notebook that I kept while locked up in a psych ward in 2012 — I had nothing to do all day but observe, record and take classes. It was fun to play around with something as mundane as a sidewalk and make it more interesting.

Imagery is the name given to the elements in a poem that spark off the senses. Despite “image” being a synonym for “picture”, images need not be only visual; any of the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) can respond to what a poet writes.

Personification is a device used in poetry where an animal, plant or thing is described as a person or given human qualities.

I hope you’ve enjoyed another peek into my Writer’s Notebook and how I use our five senses to create imagery and see human qualities in inanimate objects. I will be sharing more of my works on Literary Devices in the near future.

If you missed my other Writer’s Notebook exercise, you can see them here:

Lori Carlson writes poetry, fiction, articles and personal essays. Most of her topics are centered around Relationships, Spirituality, Life Lessons, Mental Health, and the LGBTQ+ community. She currently writes for Loose Words,💜POM💜 , Illumination, The Friday Fix, House of Haiku, Know Thyself, Heal Thyself, The Purple Pen, Blue Insights, a Few Words, and Tempest in Under 1000