Write a poem that subverts the senses.
While I was writing the title for this post, I felt how smooth and calm the number 20 is — a kind, young female cousin — reminding me that, in my mind, numbers and letters have texture and personality. As a child, I assigned numbers family identities. The number 5, the father, is sharp and angry. The number 4 is a round, soft mother who takes care of 3, a small boy. The number 2 is a quiet girl standing next to 1, the grandfather, gruff and intimidating. The oldest boy, 7, is awkward and energetic, removed from the rest.
I am not a synesthete — someone with a neurological disorder who experiences involuntarily triggered sensations, like literally seeing a color when hearing music. Like many people, I have mild, non-invasive associations that mix my senses together. The number 5 cannot be felt; it is an abstract concept. How can it be sharp? Yet I feel that if I touch it, my finger will cut open and bleed.
Synesthesia is a powerful poetic device because it can be so surprising and unexpected. Consider the final stanza of Sylvia Plath’s “Poppies in October.” The speaker, spotting some red poppies in a field of blue wildflowers, exclaims:
O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.
Here, the synesthesia occurs in the sound of poppies “crying” open. Their bright color and startling presence move the speaker to ascribe voice to something voiceless.
Write a poem that plays with synesthesia. What does a certain color taste like? what is the sound of a rainbow? What is the texture of loneliness? What does a headache smell like?
