Image....

Our word today is "image." I like it because it's the basis of the word imagine. To me imagination is all about creating images of what might be. For example, it took some brilliant person to imagine the wheel or to think we could fly. Every small step from the stone age to this electronic age was created because someone had an image of something that would make it easier for people to do what they had to do.

But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,

In literature, authors create imaginative characters, Holden Caulfield, Owen Meany, Orleanna Price to work through fictional events, in interesting places. These characters often seem more real, than the people we meet daily. I wonder how many of the people, we know, or think we know, would make fascinating characters, if they could write their own story, in another setting?

Yesterday upon the stair

I met a man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

I wish, I wish he’d go away

Painters are the most graphic of those who imagine. We see the results of their imagination immediately. They paint images of our world or other worlds - escapes, perhaps. They paint emotions and ideas, making the intangible, tangible. And they paint reality in a way that is, at times, surreal.

I like to use words in imaginative ways. It's one of the reasons I like poetry. Poets use words to create images or they make up words to make us create images, by adding our own meanings."

I never tired of reading, Lewis Carrol's, Jabberwocky, to students, when I taught English. It was fun to create meanings for its "nonsense" words, making the poem our own.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: 

All mimsy were the borogoves, 

      And the mome raths outgrabe. 

For those who needed "regular" words, There were always the "wordsmiths" - Dylan Thomas, e. e. cummings, Gerard Manley Hopkins - poets who used words and syntax in imaginative ways.

Márgarét, áre you gríeving 

Over Goldengrove unleaving? 

Leáves like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? 

I sometimes read collections of poems by a single poet, however, I love reading anthologies. My sister was fortunate enough to have had an English teacher in grade 11, who was creating a poetry anthology. He had his students select poems they loved. Many of these poems went into the anthology. It's still the best collection of poems I have ever read. Even if you don't like poetry, you will love, I am a Sensation. This link does not show the book's actual cover, which is also amazing.

The pictures? Images of an artistic or poetic nature - go figure :)

Have an imaginative day!!