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: