Imagery

Consider:  

The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I.

Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

They coiled and swam; and every track

Was a flash of golden fire.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Consider:  And now nothing but drums, a battery of drums, the conga drums jamming out, in a descarga, and the drummers lifting their heads and shaking under some kind of spell. There’s rain drums, like pitter-patter pitter-patter but a hundred times faster, and then slamming-the door drums and dropping-the-bucket drums, kicking-the-car-fender drums. Then circus drums, then coconuts-falling-out-of-the-trees-and-thumping-against-the-ground drums, then lion-skin drums, then the-wacking-of-a-hand-against-a-wall drums, the-beating-of-a-pillow drums, heavy-stones-against-a-wall drums, then the-thickest-forest-tree-trunks-pounding drums, and then the-mountain-rumble drums, then the-little-birds-learning-to-fly drums and the-big-birds-alighting-on-a-rooftop-and-fanning-their-immense-wings drums . . .

— Oscar Hijuelos, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

Consider:  She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again.  Edna heard her father’s voice and her sister Margaret’s. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree.  The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch.  There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Consider: It was a mine town, uranium most recently.  Dust devils whirled sand off the mountains.  Even after the heaviest of rains, the water seeped back into the ground, between stones, and the earth was parched again. 

— Linda Hogan, "Making Do"

Consider: 

A woman drew her long black hair out tight

And fiddled whisper music on those strings

And bats with baby faces in the violet light

Whistled, and beat their wings

And crawled head downward down a blackened wall

And upside down in air were towers

Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours

And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted walls

— T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land"

Consider: At first I saw only water so clear it magnified the fibers in the walls of the gourd. On the surface, I saw only my own round reflection. The old man encircled the neck of the gourd with his thumb and index finger and gave it a shake. As the water shook, then settled, the colors and lights shimmered into a picture, not reflecting anything I could see around me. There at the bottom of the gourd were my mother and father scanning the sky, which was where I was.

— Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior

Consider: I sat on the stump of a tree at his feet, and below us stretched the land, the great expanse of the forests, somber under the sunshine, rolling like a sea, with glints of winding rivers, the grey spots of villages, and here and there a clearing, like an islet of light amongst the dark waves of continuous tree-tops. A brooding gloom lay over this vast and monotonous landscape; the light fell on it as if into an abyss. The land devoured the sunshine; only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth and polished within the faint haze, seemed to rise up to the sky in a wall of steel.

— Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

Consider: I also enjoy canoeing, and I suppose you will smile when I say that I especially like it on moonlight nights. I cannot, it is true, see the moon climb up the sky behind the pines and steal softly across the heavens, making a shining path for us to follow; but I know she is there, and as I lie back among the pillows and put my hand in the water, I fancy that I feel the shimmer of her garments as she passes. Sometimes a daring little fish slips between my fingers, and often a pond-lily presses shyly against my hand. Frequently, as we emerge from the shelter of a cove or inlet, I am suddenly conscious of the spaciousness of the air about me. A luminous warmth seems to enfold me.

— Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

Consider: 

Queen: There is a willow grows askant the brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

There with fantastic garlands did she make

Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples . . .

There on the pendent boughs her crownet* weeds (5)

Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,

Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,** (10)

As one incapable of*** her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued**** 

Unto that element. But long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay (15)

To muddy death.

*coronet **hymns ***insensible to ****endowed

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Consider: A ripe guave is yellow, although some varieties have a pink tinge. The skin is thick, firm, and sweet. Its heart is bright pink and almost solid with seeds. The most delicious part of the guava surrounds the tiny seeds. If you don’t know how to eat a guava, the seeds end up in the crevices between your teeth.

When you bite into a ripe guava, your teeth must grip the bumpy surface and sink into the thick edible skin without hitting the center...

A green guava is sour and hard. You bite into it at its widest point, because it’s easier to grasp with your teeth. You hear the skin, meat, and seeds crunching inside your head, while the inside of your mouth explodes in little spurts of sour.

— Esmeralda Santiago, When I was Puerto Rican

Consider: 

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair

  In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud

  Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.

One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,

Stood stupefied, however he came there:

  Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

— Robert Browning, "Child Rowland to the Dark Tower Came"

Consider: 

All the hedges are singing with yellow birds!

A boy runs by with lemons in his hands.

— Rita Dove, " Notes From a Tunisian Journal"

Consider:  In the midst of poverty and want, Felix carried with pleasure to his sister the firest little white flower that peeped out from beneath the snowy ground.

— Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Consider: 

This is the time of year

when almost every night

the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.

Climbing the mountain  height,

rising toward a saint

still honored in these parts,

the paper chambers flush and fill with light

that comes and goes, like hearts.

— Elizabeth Bishop, "The Armadillo (for Robert Lowell)"

Consider: 

There were some dirty plates

and a glass of milk

beside her on a small table

near the rank, disheveled bed—

Wrinkled and nearly blind

she lay and snored

rousing with anger in her tones

to cry for food.

—William Carlos Williams, "The Last Words of My English Grandmother"

Consider: The egwugwu house was no ta pandemonium of quavering voices:  Aru oyim de de de dei!  Filled the air as the spirits of the ancestors, just emerged from the earth, greeted themselves in their esoteric language.

—Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Consider: The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning--half frost, half drizzle--and temporary brooks crossed our path, gurgling from the uplands.

—Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Consider: 

I was born the year of the loon

in a great commotion, My mother –

who used to pack $500 cash

in the shoulders of her gambling coat,

who had always considered herself (5)

the family’s “First Son” –

took one look at me

and lit out again

for a vacation in Sumatra.

Her brother purchased my baby clothes; (10)

I’ve seen them, little clown suits

of silk and color.

—Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, "Chronicle"

Consider: 

Part of a moon was falling down the west,

Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.

Its light poured softly in her lap.  She saw it

And spread her apron to it.  She put out her hand

Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, (5)

Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,

As if she played unheard some tenderness

That wrought on him beside her in the night.

“Warren,” she said, “he has come home to die:

You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time. (10)

—Robert Frost, "The Death of the Hired Man"