Poetry Writing Lesson: Using Metaphor to Carry Emotional Weight

Kaecey McCormick
May 4
5 min read

Happy May, writers!

When I first read Alicia Ostriker’s poem “Years” in The Little Space: Poems Selected and New many years ago, it honestly felt like the ground shook under me a little bit.

Smiling elderly Alicia Ostriker, with glasses and a beige-black scarf, wearing a black top, against a mottled gray backdrop. — Poet Alicia Ostriker

The poem is only eleven lines long, and yet somehow it carries the emotional force of an entire relationship history.

Reading it felt a little like being handed a whole life story compressed into a few sharp, unforgettable images.

→ Read the poem at The Poetry Foundation! ←

What struck me most then — and still strikes me now — is how little the poem actually explains.

There’s no detailed backstory. No narrative scene. No argument replayed line by line. No “let me tell you exactly what happened.”

Instead, Ostriker builds emotional pressure through metaphor.

And wow, does it work.

I thought "Years" would be a fantastic poem to learn from this month, as it is a strong model for how we can access and write about something difficult -- something we may be complicit in -- and stay emotionally honest and raw . . . without having to "say everything"

Let’s take a closer look.

Analysis:

(1) A confession that opens the door

Open red door of a dark log cabin, with shelves and urns on both sides and a small fish on the stone path outside.

The poem begins with one of the most startling opening lines I’ve ever read:

“I have wished you dead and myself dead”

That’s a huge emotional admission. The kind of sentence many writers might spend pages building toward.

But Ostriker doesn’t linger there. She doesn’t explain the thought or soften it or try to justify it.

Instead, she moves immediately into image:

“I have broken into you like a burglar / And you’ve set your dogs on me.”

The confession opens the emotional door, but the metaphors are what carry the poem forward..

Takeaway for writers: Sometimes you only need to name the emotional truth once. After that, image can do the heavy lifting.

(2) Metaphor instead of explanation

One of the things I love most about “Years” is that the relationship itself is never directly explained. Instead, the speaker keeps translating the relationship into metaphor:

a burglary
attack dogs
a hurricane
broken sticks
a monument
summer wind

Geometric mirrored mosaic reflecting blue sky and nearby building facades, creating a cool blue-and-white abstract pattern.

Each image gives us a slightly different emotional angle. And importantly, these metaphors don’t simply "decorate" the poem. They are the emotional content of the poem.

This is such an important distinction.

Sometimes when we think about metaphor, we think of it as something ornamental or “poetic” we add to make a draft more poem-like. But in poems like this, metaphor becomes the actual engine of meaning.

In other words, we understand the relationship not through exposition, but through emotional translation.

Takeaway for writers: Instead of explaining a relationship or situation, ask yourself: What physical thing can stand for it emotionally? (e.g., a storm? a bruise? a locked house? a stray dog that keep coming back?) Often the metaphor gets closer to the emotional truth than direct explanation ever could.

(3) Compression creates force

The title of the poem is "Years."

Years! Plural! Yet the poem itself is astonishingly short.

That compression gives the poem its power and voltage. Ostriker condenses an enormous emotional history into a handful of carefully chosen images

There’s a lesson in that for all of us.

I know I feel this way, and I think many writers sometimes feel pressure to explain everything so the reader “gets it.” But often, the more precisely we choose our images, the less explanation we actually need.

Compression creates energy.

Compression creates pressure.

Compression invites the reader to participate.

Takeaway for writers: Sometimes removing explanation doesn’t make a poem harder to understand. Sometimes it makes it more meaningful.

Step-by-step poetry writing exercise:

Writing emotional truth through metaphor

For this exercise, you’ll write a poem built from emotional metaphors rather than explanation or narrative. Set aside 30-60 minutes and see where the images take you!

Choose a relationship, challenging situation, or difficult period of your life.
It does not have to be romantic. You could write about: → a friendship → a family relationship → a city you lived in → burnout → a version of yourself → a job
Pick something emotionally layered.
Write the plain emotional truth (confess!).
Be brave, and write the thing that scares you the most about the relationship/situation. Use direct and plain language. Try for the same verb tense as Ostriker.
Examples: → I have loved that time and have hated it. → You have exhausted me and I have exhausted you. → I have wished you gone and been afraid of losing you. Keep your "confession" simple and honest.
Keep writing, but stop explaining.
Don't tell the whole story. Don't summarize the relationship or give details about the setting. In other words, don't write the lyrical or emotional "essay" version of the story. Instead, ask yourself, what does/did this relationship FEEL like? From there, generate a list a metaphors. Brainstorm at least 10-12 options. More if you can. Try surprising yourself. Examples: → a flooded basement → a carnival ride → a bonfire → a pack of wolves → a cemetery at midnight → a field of flowers → a locked room
Don't worry (yet) about whether they "fit." And don't worry about whether this is the "full story" -- you're getting at the emotional truth. Metaphor actually allows us to access emotional truth more directly because we stop worrying about factual explanation and begin writing from feeling
Highlight metaphors that contradict each other.
It's rare that we experience something as complex as a relationship (whether with a person, situation, or place), and it's all ONE thing. It's complicated, right? The best emotional writing often contains tension, layers, and contradiction. For example, maybe the relationship felt: → dangerous AND beautiful → exhausting AND addictive → comforting AND limiting Select metaphors that showcase both. When you draft, allow opposing images to exist beside each other.
Build the poem through images.
Time to draft! Put your "confession" at the top. Then, instead of explaining the emotional journey, move from image to image. Think about the images as a sequence that builds and shows different facets of a complicated situation. You might try ending with a release or change of emotional state, the way Ostriker does. Trust the reader to connect the emotional dots.
Cut any lines that over-explain. When revising, look for places where you've slipped into explaining what the metaphor already shows.
Usually a poem gets stronger when you remove those lines.
It's okay if every detail of the relationship isn't explained. A little mystery can be a good thing!

Final thoughts on this month's poetry writing lesson in metaphor

What I still love about “Years” is how much emotional charge it contains without ever feeling messy or uncontrolled.

The poem trusts metaphor. It trusts compression. It trusts the reader.

And I think that’s part of why it continues to feel so powerful years later, and it's why I wanted this month's poetry lesson on metaphor to highlight this amazing poem.

Book cover: The Everyday Writer's Guide to Starting a Writing Practice by Kaecey McCormick. Black background with bold yellow and white text.

If you enjoyed this poetry writing lesson and want more guided prompts and exercises, you might love my workbook The Everyday Writer's Guide to Starting a Writing Practice. It’s packed with step-by-step activities to help you stay inspired year-round.