Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Hyperbole (Stretch the Truth)

"It is perhaps always disastrous not to be a poet"—Lytton Stratchy, Elizabeth and Essex

Source

"But I don't want to go among mad people", said Alice. "Oh you can't help that," said the cat. "We're all mad here." - Lewis Carroll

                       Midweek Motif ~ Hyperbole                                        (Stretch the Truth)

Dictionaries tell us that Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement or claim not meant to be taken literally.

The exaggeration is extreme and unreal for the sake of emphasizing the real situation and often to produce a comic effect.

Dip your quill in Humor, Excitement, Wonder, Awe or whatever your choice may be and umm…just stretch the Truth a bit.

Now let’s see how Paul Bunyan exaggerates winter:

         

“Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night before.”

Shakespeare in Macbeth, Act II Scene II:

 “Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No. This my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.”

Andrew Marvell in To His Coy Mistress:

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast;

But thirty thousand to the rest...

And a couple of poems:

Tis Whiter Than An Indian Pipe

By Emily Dickinson

'Tis whiter than an Indian Pipe --

'Tis dimmer than a Lace --

No stature has it, like a Fog

When you approach the place --

Nor any voice imply it here

Or intimate it there

A spirit -- how doth it accost --

What function hat the Air?

This limitless Hyperbole

Each one of us shall be --

'Tis Drama -- if Hypothesis

It be not Tragedy --

         

                                   

As I Walked One Evening

By W. H. Auden

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

The rest is here 

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

                (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Social Stigma)