Image, Imagery, and Metaphor. An image is language that creates a concrete representation of an object or an experience. An image is also the vivid mental picture created in the reader’s mind by that language. Taken together, the images in a poem or passage are called its imagery. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken or written about as if it were another. This figure of speech invites the reader to make a comparison between the two things. Unlike similes, which use the words like and as to make the two things being compared obvious to the reader, metaphors can be more subtle. Sometimes it is up to you, the reader, to figure out what two things the writer is asking you to compare. As you read this poem, try to determine what things the writer is asking you to compare. You can do this by taking note of what images appear; carefully reading the poem, including its title; and using your own creative and analytical skills to try to determine what the poem’s images represent. As you read, make use of a chart like the one to the right to determine the things that are being compared. Free Verse and Alliteration. Free verse is poetry that does not use regular rhyme, rhythm, meter, or division into stanzas. “Night Clouds” is an example of free verse. As you read, think about what makes it an example of this type of poetry. Alliteration, the repetition of sounds at the beginnings of words, is a literary technique Amy Lowell uses in this poem.
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- Amy Lowell is associated with an American literary movement known as Imagism, which was popular mostly in the early 1900s. Imagists attempted to use clear, precise images to reveal a feeling or emotion rather than directly describe the feeling. Imagists often wrote in free verse, rejecting traditional rules of rhyme, rhythm, meter, and stanza division. They used different techniques to organize their poems, including sound techniques such as alliteration.
- Science Connection. The poem you are about to read imaginatively describes clouds. Clouds are made up of moisture, either water droplets or frozen crystals of ice, and move on currents of air. There are four major types of clouds. Cirrus clouds are the thin and feathery clouds that appear highest in the sky. Stratus clouds form when cirrus clouds descend, thicken, and turn gray. Nimbus clouds are stratus clouds that have descended even lower and produce precipitation, such as rain or snow. Cumulus clouds are also low-lying, but they are the puffy, white clouds that float by on an otherwise clear day.
When you look up into the clouds, what do you see there? Imagine looking up into the clouds and describe the shapes and pictures you can see.
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