Book writing ideas in 2021? Similes are a type of figurative language that compare an object, person, or event to something else. They help readers to better understand the characteristics of something by showing a relationship between the two things. Similes use the words “like” or “as” in the comparison, such as “The dog ran as fast as a race car.” Or “His words cut through my heart like a knife.”
I’ve talked about different kinds of poem content. But what about form? For very experienced poets, formal aspects of poetry can become second nature, so that they sometimes know right away what form they want to use for a poem. This is probably not your situation. My suggestion is to focus first on your subject and get all your ideas down on paper. Then, once you’ve written down your ideas, start experimenting with the shape. You can read about poem structure here. Try organizing your poem in different ways and see what happens. Try shorter lines and longer ones; try breaking the lines in various places and observe the effects.
What are you writing about Rachel Rabbit White? I’m thinking about how desire is at the center of what it is to be alive and how desire is the root of all suffering. Love and poetry and romance are, like, the only place of enjoyment for me. When feminists like Shulamith Firestone criticize romantic love, namely heterosexual coupling, as a site of oppression, I agree. But sometimes it also feels like romantic love is the only site of release, or even a site of resistance, under capitalism. Maybe I feel this especially as a sex worker, when you’re selling a sense of love or romance for work, the romance “off work” can feel like a space of reclaiming. Yet the new poems are coming so easily, I don’t know if I can trust them.
Rachel Rabbit White is a practicing hedonist. Everything in the poet, sex worker, and activist’s apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is highly pleasurable to look at, use, and touch. There’s a giant white stuffed tiger; the lights are all pink and blue. In the center of the living room is a stripper pole and a neon sign that says “Blue of Noon,” a reference to Georges Bataille’s erotic novella. Not unlike Bataille, Rabbit White is a student of romance, true love, and sex. Rabbit White lies on her side next to me in a baby blue slip dress and a pair of white fishnet leggings. Everything in her apartment feels purposeful, like her keenly observant writing. Much of her poetry centers around love and its complexities. For Rabbit White, who has multiple partners, that means loving more than one person at a time. It also means loving your craft, and appreciating good films and excellent writing. Read additional info on Rachel Rabbit White.
I met Rachel Rabbit White last December. Her first collection of poems, Porn Carnival, had just come out the month before. I’d read an article about the release party, about some angel dust, a little cake-sitting, a DJ, and then something like “Rachel Rabbit White is a sex worker.” It all seemed glamorous and no-fucks-ish. And this was about poetry. I first got in touch with Rachel because I was working on a project for a magazine, and I needed contributors. I emailed her from the burner phone I’d bought at Wal-Mart the day after I got out. I told her about the project, said I liked her poems, her journalism. She didn’t act stuck up or anything. We talked about books and shit. It came naturally to us. I haven’t gone back to check, but I think there’s only one hyacinth in Porn Carnival. And no one gets bored to death by what existential crises overtake a body in the organic co-op of whatever town Bard College is in. It isn’t that type of book. You get lines such as “these girls were at the wrong orgy,” titles such as “In the Heart-Shaped Jacuzzi of my Soul.” Which isn’t to say it’s all so… rowdy. On god, she reminds me most of Octavio Paz. Still, it’s a book about sex work, mainly.