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The Eviction of Figures of Speech

July 22, 2022 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as Craft, Figurative language, Figures of Speech, writing

The current trend in writing is to tread carefully when using figurative language because descriptions may be offensive, such as comparing people with foods. So, even though my complexion is cappuccino and my eyes are almond-shaped, I’m not allowed to say that; even about my own self. It’s considered feeding a stereotype. In the Caribbean, we often made jokes by claiming, “I’m not really brown, I just stayed in the sun too long.” Or, “My hair’s not really kinky, it’s the humidity.”

From time immemorial, (I’m not really saying that time is old. Experienced perhaps?), people have been all colors, shapes, and sizes. Writers, artists and photographers capture what they see. Okay, maybe some artists were punished if the sovereign didn’t like how they were depicted, but a photo doesn’t lie. Yeah, that’s really you. Though nowadays you can doctor it up in photoshop.

It would seem that one may no longer describe characters as ‘cute as a button,’ ‘cool as a cucumber,’ ‘mean as a junkyard dog,’ ‘thick as thieves’, or ‘slow as molasses.’

Although, I don’t think the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz would be offended if I called him a stuffed shirt ‘cause he was. And Jacob Marley will forever remain ‘as dead as a doornail.’

When we order coffee, do we no longer ask for a ‘short’ or ‘tall’?

The characters writers create are fictional. Figurative Language: metaphors, similes and personification, show the reader how the character perceives themselves and/or how they are perceived by others. All of which help the reader to understand the conflicts and motivations in their lives that cause them to act as they do. Descriptive language is also the artistic palette that allows readers to see the characters.

Mirror, mirror on the wall. We are who we are. When did we become so sensitive and easily offended?

In our overzealousness to be politically and diversely correct, we risk creating flat, unrealistic and unbelievable characters that by page five are dead on arrival.

Sometimes I wonder who is this collective that wants to do away with metaphors, similes and personification? As in the Wizard of Oz, I would like to draw back the curtain to reveal the ‘all-powerful’ entity controlling the literary world.

I don’t care what anyone says, the truth is the truth. My grandfather was black as tar, my father thin as six o’clock, my best-friend cackled like a chicken, my aunt nattered like a monkey, my uncle snored like a chainsaw.

And the world really is round, no matter how flat ‘they’ think it is.

See you next time on August 22^nd!

Veronica Jorge

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FIVE BELLES TOO MANY: A Sarah Blair Mystery BY DEBRA H. GOLDSTEIN—REVIEWED BY VERONICA JORGE

June 22, 2022 by Veronica Jorge in category Book Reviews by Veronica Jorge, Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as #Cozy #Mystery, book review, Debra H. Goldstein, new release, Sarah Blair Mystery

FIVE BELLS TOO MANY

Debra H. Goldstein

Kensington Publishing Corp. 2022 ISBN 978-1-4967-3223-1

She’s done it again! In her new cozy mystery, Five Belles Too Many, Debra H. Goldstein once again shows her mastery at creating a tangle of secret lives and ambitious hearts where she hides the killer in plain sight within the story. And though we meticulously follow the clues she scatters for us, we’re always thrown for a loop because the killer is never who we think.

If you have been following these reviews, as I hope you have, and reading her previous books, you’ll be familiar with the twins, Emily the chef of Southwind restaurant in Wheaton, Alabama, and her sister Sarah, who works for a lawyer.

Trouble and murder seem to follow the twins in every project and venture and their joint ownership of the restaurant has found murder as the main course one too many times. Working in concert, they’ve always helped the police catch the culprit.

In Five Belles Too Many, Sarah takes center stage. The city of Wheaton hosts a Southern Belles reality show where five couples compete to win a perfect wedding and dream honeymoon. Excitement. Nerves on edge. Egos and tempers flaring. The tension ramps up when someone turns up dead. Sarah’s investigative instincts kick in as she attempts to identify the killer and prevent another death. The stakes are high because her mother is one of the show’s contestants and possibly the next victim.

Available July 2022, a perfect cozy mystery to add to your summer reading collection.

Remember to try the recipes at the end of the book.

Veronica Jorge

See you next time on July 22^nd!

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Poetic Thoughts by Veronica Jorge

May 22, 2022 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as Haiku, Highlights foundation, national poetry month, poetry, Veronica Jorge, world poetry day

March was World Poetry Day, and April was National Poetry month. During a recent webinar sponsored by the Highlights Foundation, the authors Margarita Engle and Padma Venkatraman expressed the following thoughts:

Poetry is a safe place, a refuge for your emotions.
Poetry is a form of music.
Poetry is hopeful.

I find that through poetry one can communicate something extremely personal in a safe way. You say it, but don’t really say it. Your words reveal a part of you. Your emotions come out like a song lyric.

Here I share two of my haiku poems of feelings in my own heart.

Haiku

Memories

        by Veronica Jorge

Sand, thousands of grains
They are like my memories
My heart filled with you.

Reflection

                               by Veronica Jorge

To teach is to learn
In my pupil I see me
My life example.

Thanks for reading.

See you next time on June 22^nd!

~Veronica Jorge

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Her Story by Veronica Jorge

April 22, 2022 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as International Woman's Day, Non-fiction, Peotry, Woman's History Month, woman's writing

six women holding hands and walking toward the setting sun

Reflecting on last month’s celebration of Women’s History Month, and International Women’s Day, I looked through my bookshelves at some of the books written by women about women. I fingered the spines of a few and flipped through the pages of others. Each title evoked a memory, a lesson learned, an inspiration received; a few elicited a tear.

This month, I’d like to share with you a few of the books that have moved, inspired, and touched my life. They are the voices of fellow-women across the globe; sisters, friends, women.

African American

To Be Young Gifted and Black – Lorraine Hansberry, Signet, 1970 ISBN 0-451-15952-7. Best known for her play, A Raisin in the Sun, this is her autobiography of the black experience in mid- 20^th century America.

Taking the Arrow out of the Heart – Alice Walker, Ink Atria 2018, ISBN 978-1-5011-7952-5.

Author’s poems in Spanish and English. (especially her poem, Hope is a woman who has lost her fear on page 159).

Native American

Sister Nations: Native Voices, ed. Heid E. Erdrich & Laura Tohe, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002 ISBN 0-87351-428-9. Anthology of Native American Women writers.

The Ways of My Grandmothers – Beverly Hungry Wolf, Quill Press, 1982 ISBN-978-0-688-00471-2. A tribute to the women of the Blackfoot Indians.

American

First Ladies of the Republic – Jeanne E. Abrams, NYU Press, 2018 ISBN: 978-147-988-6531.

The experience of the White House and politics from the perspective of the wives of the first three American Presidents.

China

Women of the Silk – Gail Tsukiyama. St. Martin’s Press, 1991 ISBN: 0-312-064-659.

Silk workers in 1926 Chinese village; their hopes, dreams, and struggles.

Cuban-American

Everything I kept/Todo Lo Que Guarde – Ruth Behar. Swan Isle Press, 2018. ISBN: 97809972-28724. Bi-lingual Spanish/English edition.

Poems of womanhood, fear, surrender, and life.

Dominican Republic

In The Time of The Butterflies – Julia Alvarez, Algonquin books, 2010. ISBN: 978-1565129764.

The story of the Mirabal sisters and their fight against the dictator Trujillo.

Japan

The Strangeness of Beauty: A Novel – Lydia Yuri Minatoya. Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0-393-321140-1.

A woman returns to the home of her estranged mother in Japan on the verge of World War II.

To Live and To Write: Selections by Japanese Women Writers 1913-1938 – ed. Yukiko Tanaka. The Seal Press, 1987. ISBN: 0-931188-43-1.

Nine leading women writers of Japan spanning twenty-five years and their emerging voices on feminist consciousness.

Israel

In Her Own Voice: An Illuminated Book of Prayers – Enya Tamar Keshet. Maggid Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-965-526-036-6.

The voices of Jewish women and their prayers and longings from birth through death. The art work is stunning.

Poland

On the Niemen – Eliza Orzeszkowa. ISBN: 978-09-888-59296.

A woman’s story of abandonment, impoverishment, social justice, the effects of war and the emancipation of women. In the 1900s, the author was a top contender with Leo Tolstoy for the Nobel Prize. Neither won.

I can never have too many books; always room for 1, 2,3, or more…. So, what are some titles that are special to you?

See you next time on May 22^nd!

Veronica Jorge

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BOOK REVIEW: THE HIDING GAME by Gwen Strauss

March 22, 2022 by Veronica Jorge in category Book Reviews by Veronica Jorge, Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as book review, The Hiding Game

THE HIDING GAME

Gwen Strauss

illustrated by Herb Leonhard

Pelican Publishing Co.

2017

ISBN 978-1-455622658

A REVIEW BY VERONICA JORGE

Picture books, that welcoming world of imagery and words that capture the heart and the imagination. And most wonderful of all, when the story is true and reveals a hidden gem.

The Hiding Game, a work of creative nonfiction, is a moving account of the author’s great-uncle Daniel Benedite and Varian Fry, brave men who were instrumental in saving the lives of some of the most important scientists, artists, writers and thinkers of the day such as; Vlady Serge who fled to Mexico and became one of the country’s leading muralist, Max Ernst, a German painter, and artists Marc Chagall and Marcel Duchamp, among others.

Little Aube, daughter of the famous poet, Andre Breton,( known as the Pope of Surrealism), is forced to move from place to place with her family during the 1940s in Nazi-occupied France. They eventually find shelter in Villa Air-Bel, a hidden villa where Varian, with funds from the New York American Rescue Committee, works with Daniel to arrange passage for them, and others, out of war-torn Europe.

Sundays are Aube’s favorite day because, together with all of the “guests” in the house, she spends the day drawing, singing, and playing games. “Papa said that by singing, playing and laughing with the greatest joy, they would fight against fear.”

But most of the time, things remain secret, like the radio for listening to the war news, and the cow in the yard for giving milk. Aube also has her own secret hiding place; the old armoire in the kitchen, just in case “they” come.

Illustrations by Herb Leonhard draw the reader into the lives of the characters, turning a factual account into a personal encounter with time and history. Strauss also provides actual photos of the individuals, a brief history of the account, and links for further study and reading.

I leave you with a quote listed in the book’s endnotes attributed to Rosemary Sullivan’s book, Villa Air-Bel. “Andre Breton believed that surrealism and art must keep the playful child inside us alive. He believed that laughter was fundamentally the opposite of fascism.”

Veronica Jorge

See you next time on April 22^nd!

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