It’s Never Just a Blue Jay
by Durell Carter
The beak of a blue jay tap-dances in the dewy morning dirt. It hopes to find ants, worms, or any insect that will make its efforts feel complete. The blue bird digs, then flutter-hops to an unpecked patch of dirt. Fifteen minutes feels like an eternity for me to watch, but probably feels like a snap of two dry fingers to the bird. After digging, searching, and finding, the bird lifts its wings and takes to the trees to be a spectator of another creature doing its best.
As a poet, I could not help but say amen when I watched this process conclude. Lord only knows how long I have spent toiling in the mud looking for something with enough protein in it to make a poem feel full to the point of being nauseated at the thought of adding another simile. The bird uses what the world presents to it to find the right alchemy within itself, and as a poet, it is essential to follow suit.
Everything has the power to become a metaphor:
The oil leaking from a Dodge Challenger is a wounded MMA fighter.
The raindrop is a millimeter-sized hurricane trying to grab as many ants as possible.
The sunshine is a hug from the ghost you keep almost forgetting.
Robert Frost argues that “poetry is all metaphor.” He believes that metaphor creates the lines we need to connect the dots and become closer to our breathing world. It is nearly impossible to see someone rushing to work in some disheveled manner and not be reminded of how time is constantly running all of us down while we attempt to control a white horse.
Every moment speaks two languages: the literal and the universal.
The literal tongue tells you that the stop sign is red. The hole in the boat’s waterline is what caused it to sink. Each situation is the truth, and nothing but the truth. It is. The universal tongue builds a bridge from the literal to another truth hidden in the dirt of the literal. The red stop sign can be the middle sibling, holding its breath in fear of not being important anymore. The boat can be an unlucky prodigal who burned through his inheritance and failed to reach home before being swallowed by the world. The poet’s job is to listen to the languages being spoken by each moment and paint the story they tell you.
An issue some young writers grapple with is listening to a moment and adding too much hyperbole to the conversation the moment is trying to have with you. Making a metaphor too grandiose can distract your audience from the central message. Dressing your metaphor in too many academic-sounding words can obscure your message.
Ocean Vuong shared this belief about metaphors in an Instagram story in 2021:
...essentially, metaphors that go awry can signal a hurried desire to be “literary” or “poetic” (i.e. “writing*”), which can lose traction/trust with a reader. In other words, a metaphor is a detour/but that detour better lead to discoveries that alter/amplify the meaning of what is already there, so that a reader sees you as a servant of possibility rather than someone trying to prove that they are a “writer.” One is performative, the other exploratory. In this way, the metaphor acts as a virtual medium, ejecting the text’s optical realism into an “elsewhere”. But this elsewhere should inform the original upon our return. Otherwise the journey would feel like an ejection from a crash rather than a curated journey toward more complex meaning. (Vuong)
Your metaphor must drive the central message home without getting lost. Keep your metaphor well dressed, but make sure it doesn’t outshine the message.
The poet’s job is to listen to the songs being sung to them and connect them to the world while singing the music of their own making. Paying attention and placing red strings from image to image is the never-ending game a poet must play to uncover the truth. The blue jay looking for worms in the dirt is never just a bluebird digging in the dirt. It’s a hungry poet trying to find the line with a manageable amount of oil in its ink.
Frost, Robert. “The Constant Symbol.” The Frost Place, 23 Apr. 2018.
Vuong, Ocean. “On Metaphors.” Are.na. Accessed 18 Aug. 2026.
Blue Rivers is pleased to share that the Oklahoma Writing Project (OWP) will host three sessions with poet Durell Carter on Zoom. All sessions begin at 8 AM Pacific / 10 AM Central / 11 AM Eastern / 5 PM Central European Time. The workshops will include time to write and share your work.
October 10 Using Metaphor as a Tool for Transformation
November 14 Building Poems from Memory
December 12 How to Write the Fire Ending
Register for the OWP workshops here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSepRxXduI868fcP_LvzO97W-ufUeL1guH3op7B2BqdnYAB_eQ/viewform
Durell Carter is a writer and teacher based in Oklahoma, where he shares his passion for literature with his students. He holds a Master's degree in Literature from the University of Central Oklahoma. In 2023, he released his first book, Mr. Monday Morning's Broken Songs and Testimonies. He has work published in Rawhead Journal, Wild Roof Journal, Posit Journal, Rising Phoenix Review, and others. Instagram: @durell.carter
