On Metaphor
“Metaphor isn’t just for the rich or the well educated. My father could speak in metaphors 10 times as powerful as all of ours.” I don’t remember the person to whom this comment was directed, or even the topic of discussion. But I do remember the setting—15 or so graduate students sitting in a circle, silent now, deathly silent. It was Tempe, Arizona, the mid-90s, and it was, as always, hot. Even in the institutional, air-conditioned rooms of the Humanities building, it always felt hot—the electricity of our creative minds conjoining, all of us wanting so badly to prove how smart and unique and creative we were, or to write the best pieces we could write, or both. We were, actually, a relatively diverse group—black, brown, and white, queer and straight, American-born and not, working class and not, a variety of ages, from just-out-of-college to mid-40s—with a range of first languages and home states and countries. And yet something that someone in the room had said—something I can’t...