on parallelism, poetry, and presence

in which i wax elocutive

if you have ever taken a middle school writing class from me, you have heard me repeat the lost tools of writing line that the writing process consists of three canons: invention (coming up with ideas), arrangement (ordering ideas), and elocution (expressing ideas).

my students have also heard me say (likely ad nauseum) that within the canon of elocution, all tropes (figures of speech having to do with the meaning of words) are borne from metaphor, while all schemes (figures of speech having to do with the order of words) are borne from parallelism.

for example, the trope of personification is simply a specific kind of metaphor which compares an inanimate object to a human, while the scheme of alliteration is a specific kind of parallelism, using a repeated consonant sound at the beginning of words in close proximity.

one of my seventh-grade girls once asked me if this meant that the root of all figures of speech is actually parallelism, arguing that metaphor is simply the juxtaposition of parallel ideas rather than sounds, words, or structures.

i haven’t been able to stop thinking about that comment ever since. parallel lines is borne directly from it. there will be poems here, which is to say, lines. but there will also be an effort to see the world poetically; that is, to see the world compassionately; that is, to see ideas, sorrows, joys, wonders, and humans in the context of—in parallel to—the others.

will you join me?

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