Writing Problems: Mixed Metaphors
One of the best areas to expand the meaning and beauty of a poem is getting to the right metaphor. Mixing them is like bringing a rose to water, but instead of making him drink, you step in his thorn twice. Or something.
Mixed metaphors are a combination of two or more incompatible metaphors, which produce a ridiculous effect. They might seem like “rocket surgery,” but they are only a misused figure of speech.
Paul Muldoon turned these into a poem, “Symposium,” a quasi-sonnet:
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