Mentor Text: Red Vise, Blue Vise by Eric J. Stormer
Techniques:
- Imagery
- Symbolism
- juxtaposition
Background –
I’ve long been a proponent of maintaining a notebook as a teacher – a place to capture all the half-baked ideas and flights of lesson planning fancy. I love my physical one, and have developed a similar pattern with the Notes app on my phone.
And I was thankful for that this week when my Moving Writers deadline was imminent. In the midst of prepping two new books I’ve never taught and marking stacks of essays, my furious organization to keep on top of all that, and make sure everyone got to swim practice and art class, I completely let Mentor Text Wednesday fall of my radar.
So, before I got in the car to drive home from swim practice last night, I rolled through my MTW note to see what was in there. I note the poems from the various email newsletters I get that might have something to share here, and use with my young poets, and ‘Red Vise, Blue Vise’ by Eric J. Stormer blew me away again.
How we might use this text:
Imagery – This poem is imagery heavy. It opens with focused description of the red vise. It’s economical, doling out just enough to set the scene that it makes it clear that this vise is important, that it carries weight to the speaker.
This is bookended nicely by the briefer description of the blue vise that closes the poem. Because this vise has seen less use, has less purpose, it is a less developed image.
The intentional levels of development of these two images allows the imagery to serve great purpose in this poem, and might lead to a great conversation about how we develop and use imagery with young poets.
Symbolism – Stormer gives us excellent examples of how a writer can imbue an object with symbolic weight in a piece of writing. Giving us the image of the red vise so powerfully, and then connecting it to the work ethic and values of the speaker’s father (figure) is a masterclass in this. That red vise represents that figure in their life. And that figure represents a set of values.
The blue vise, intentionally less developed as an image, nonetheless works symbolically as well. It represents the idea that the speaker is not the person that the red vise represented. The blue vise has not seen the use the red vise has, because, as the kids say, they’re “not that guy.”
Juxtaposition – Presenting these two syllables together is a wonderful little lesson in crafting juxtaposition. If this poem were simply ‘Red Vise,’ it would be a damn fine poem. But it’s putting the blue vise, and what it represents along the powerful image and symbolism of the red vise that makes this poem something that needs to be put in front of our students. Stormer’s use of imagery and symbolism makes the juxtaposition of these two vises impactful, and in doing so, communicates a big idea. There’s a purpose in use of these devices that our writers could learn from.
I rolled around the ideas for this column on the drive home last night, knowing I’d have to find the time to write it up somewhere in a busy Wednesday. As I wrap this up, however, instead of feeling a bit frantic trying to squeeze something else into the schedule I had planned for today, I’m inspired. Because that’s the gift of working with mentor texts. Not only do they serve to inspire the writing of the students in our classrooms, but they can fire us up too. Admittedly, I just finished up the pursuit where ‘Red Vise, Blue Vise’ would have been a perfect fit, but I know I’ll be teaching that again, and that next time I do, I’ve got an absolute monster of a mentor text to dig into with writers.
Have you got any good mentor texts about crafting a symbol? That model effective use of juxtaposition? Is there anything you’ve filed away in your notebook or Notes app that you’ve recently rediscovered?
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