Warbler Delight

I just discovered this short essay that I fell in love with. It's called "Warbler Delight" by Amy Leach. I think this just might be one of my favorite essays that I have blogged about thus far.

Amy Leach's essays is quite perplexing. She starts with a quote from the song "The Water is Wide" but changes some of the wording. Then she describes how she dreams about time traveling. Next she makes a huge change and describes the migratory patterns of the blackpoll warbler.

The Lesson:

The above summary sounded really confusing right? I was a little confused while I first read through this essay as well, but towards the end Leach pulls us back in and connects all the parts of her essay. I guess this is why she writes for magazines.

Leach is able to incorporate allusions and metaphors in her essay and yet does not lose her audience. This can be a difficult feat especially for really inexperienced writers. She writes about warblers and seems a bit off track. Then she pulls us back with the line, "Although we walkers on the ground like to plan for sudden, drastic shifts in time, mostly we seem time locked. We winter, we summer, we winter, we summer; while the warbler flies from summer to summer to summer to summer!"

I think that this quote is so beautiful and so true to how we feel (especially me since I am currently in the frigid winter of Idaho when I am originally from California). Leach does a great job of keeping her metaphors relevant and controlled.

How we can apply this in our own writing:

• use metaphors but be careful
• make sure the metaphor is relevant to what you are trying to say
• don't go overboard with metaphors and allusions