By George P. Lumayag
The dark clouds are hovering my beauty.
Though I’m lonely
but the clouds are kissing and hugging me.
No doubt my beauty shines at nightfall.
Then the wind hugs me
and it bumps on me at daylight.
No doubt my beauty
leads away.
As I go with the wind
And we fly high up in the sky to dream of the best flight.
Contest: Wilderness of Want
Sponsor: Ink Empress
Prompt: What is a ripple
without its rhythm?
Written: 092326, 6PMCT
I like sunrises, sunsets, and starring
at the moon. And I also like observing
The rain if it's not a monsoon.
At first, I see just drips of raindrops
Falling gently on my tin roof top.
Initially, the drops are like quiet sounds.
But what is a ripple without its rhythm?
Nature's music cannot be held in prison.
Later, there were surround sounds all around.
Soon after, they increased their intensity.
Suddenly, the sky's the limit of my expectancy.
It is now pouring torrents of rain, and I am
Beginning to worry if it will leave me with pain.
To my disdain, the rain speaks to the wind,
Asking for a dance on my roof made of tin.
The wind complies, and they begin to dance.
Through my water drenched window pane,
I watch them dance, but I keep my distance.
The shower falls; the world turns; they dance.
I pray their dancing doesn't kick up a storm.
It continues to rain as I go to bed and fall
Asleep, and the rain ceases by early morn.
Somehow, she appears from nowhere
to dominate the darkest sky,
her glow, suspended in the air,
will mystically bring on a sigh.
Her magnetic vibes are wondrous:
the shifting of each ocean's tide,
and also, somehow moving us-
she steers how minds and feelings ride.
Manipulator is our Moon.
Our months, divided each by stage,
are how her phases stay in tune
to regulate how hearts will gauge.
Full moon and love are tied as one-
Romance and moonlight, hand in hand
maneuver closeness that is spun
as Cupid seals what she has planned.
A force of nature, to be sure!
For ages, she's been on a throne
with mystic strength that does allure-
to mysteries still unbeknown.
Important note about this poem:
After Adam's fall,
After the great deluge,
After the tower of Babel,
God desired to physically
Keep mankind disconnected.
Thus, separation by continents
By way of oceans and seas.
"...and the waters that were gathered
together he called Seas. ...". Gen.1.10b
Out of me,
the Contenents came,
And my waves against
their shores were my greeting
My depth is defying
My waves are trying
My winds are unforgiving
I am the oceans and the seas
The fog is blinding
Not a time for crying
Everything keeps moving
Unlike the river flowing
I am the oceans and the seas
Here, everything's rushing
The brave ones are fishing
For shrimp and tuna; craving
I am the oceans and the seas
I, the mistress of partitioning
I, the master of disconnecting
I also major in separating
I too, minor in dividing
I am the oceans and the seas
The massive pathway for conquering
The gigantic roadway for discovering
The first highway to faraway traveling
I am the oceans and the seas
I met one ant in my house.
I read about a second ant.
The second ant is another story.
If forced to give the first ant a name,.
I would most gladly call him Terry.
There was no interaction with the
Other ant that I only read about, but
I learned a valuable life-lesson from him.
However, the no name ant is another story.
My personal experience was with Terry.
Terry, heading west on my bathroom
Floor, suddenly turned right to go north.
Just to interact with him, I tried to turn him
Back north. He did not like my interference.
I offered him certain treats, but he said, "No".
So I left him alone.
I then proceeded to do other nessisary
chores and soon forgot about Terry.
I later remembered him and returned to see if he could be found. To my utter amazement and
Surprise, When I looked under the sink cabinet,
I witnessed an ant being reeled in by a spider.
I assumed it was Terry. Lesson learned?
If for any reason, you are advised by another,
Listen and proceed with caution, or turn
Around.
Life said to death,
I make people live and thrive.
Death said to life,
I make them barely survive and die.
On and on they went;
Back and forth they said:
I fill people with joy and gladness.
I fill them with pain and suffering.
I give them hope for tomorrow.
I give them grief and sorrow.
I fill them with songs of melody.
I give them songs of misery.
I teach people that there's life after you.
I tell them that there nothing after me.
When time shall be no more,
I offer people eternity.
When time shall cease to be,
That will be the end of me.
The cloud looked down in silent shame -
'Oh! What do I do? My lighting kills!'
The strong winds blew it to pastures green -
'O Look down now - your rainfall heals!'
"You hold Eternity in your hand!"
Boomed the ocean to the shore.
"For, in every grain of sand -
Is Earth's history for evermore! "
Staring into the eye of the storm
you're the tornado ripping apart my soul
I can't think straight
but one doesn't need to think
to know the path to follow
Destroyed in destruction that follows
you're whirlwind keeps me whole
any which way it's about to blow
and I adore the way you blow
the temperature rises
as I burn deeply in your glow
weather is nothing to take lightly
and I take it all
the good, the bad
even snow
I hate you
I love you
"I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys"
Bible, Song of Solomon 2:1
I call her Rose.
She came from Sharon,
A region in the land of Israel.
She's a Rose of Sharon tree.
You might have one of your own.
Anyway, Rose was a gift from a friend.
We planted her in our back yard and for
A couple of years, we watched her grow
And produce some beautiful blossoms.
Sadly we sold the property and moved away.
It's been more than four years now, and I am
Sure that Rose has spread her limbs and is
Now displaying some breath-taking roses.
We miss our Rose. The short While we spent
Together made us happy and proud. She was
An important part of our tree family We are
Happy for Rose's new family who must be
Enjoying her as much as we did.
Oh Yellow.
I was both arrested and captured by you.
My eyes locked on a most gorgious view.
Oh Yellow.
Were you a car, I'd pay you no mind.
But you are you; So, I make you mine.
Oh Yellow.
Were you a house, in you I would not recline;
And at your table, I would not dine.
But you are you; So, I make you mine.
Oh Yellow.
You look so stunning all the time.
Oh my sweet Yellow, I'll always be
Your best fellow.
I am slipping into a dream_
I am in a forest green and lush
with trees so beautiful
and bird songs divine
and hear a "tree" talking. . .
my roots are deep in the earth
my branches raised to the sun
I am strength and I am courage
a river flows past me like a stream of glass
I am tranquility and serenity . . .
the winds are whistling through my weeping leaves
like violin's crying and
echoing in the forest . . .
I gave to life all the soul I had in me
all my leaves and tears trembled
and all my pain fell in autumn
drifting away red, yellow and orange
to decay . . .
I rest under the snow
and place on a cloak of pure white
then, in the Spring I put on my emerald gown
and re-birth . . .
Through many generations
Roots have forged strong bonds
that overlap each other deep in the earth
I am the oldest,
not untouched by the outside world
beauty and decay
Mixed with nostalgia and lush forest
children's play and laughter
When I look back
in slightly blurry images
No echo in the forest anymore
silence reigns
The city is growing faster than my family
the crystal ball cannot predict the future
They always stop and look at me
Cameras often click my way.
They often gossip by this Tree
And they have a lot to say!
At times, they bask inside my shade.
They hug me just for fun.
The Tree, "the unsung friend" they've made
And I get to be part of their fun.
For instance, when playing hide and seek
They freeze behind me out of sight.
It makes me laugh when they take a peak
And jump out at their friends to fright.
Some consider me a masterpiece
As I feature in their art.
When they're near to me they feel my peace.
Now isn't that quite smart?
I have outlived many souls
Who used to greet me everyday.
Human love helps nature to feel whole,
What more can I say?
This is me. I am the Tree
And until my own time ends,
I'll be your joyous company
Your Tree, your "unsung friend".
I am not just a tree but a tree of many lives
I have watched and protected for many years
My trunk has become strong and thick like armor
I am a fierce but gentle, always standing guard
I am burdened with pain and suffering of the seasons
Of many storms, some with heartache and destruction
Lightning has destroyed some of my limbs and branches
But my soul remains strong and as deep as my roots
I provide homes for nature’s beautiful creatures
Birds still build nests on my limbs of branches
My leaves are like many fingers providing shelter
From the hot sun, the cold rain and frigid snow
My oak leaves protect and camouflage
Many needy creatures have lived for years
Safely thriving in homes, I provided selflessly
As well as standing tall and guarding your home
Someday I know that my limbs and trunk may crack
And rot may take over and destroy my strength, as I fall
I hope you will be kind and salvage a piece of my soul
As a table or chair that you will forever honor in your home
Introduction
A clock can accuse, a doorway can hesitate, and winter can behave like an unwelcome guest. The pleasure of these poems often begins in that instant of recognition: something nonhuman acts in a strangely familiar way, and the ordinary world becomes psychologically charged. Read side by side, such poems show that this imaginative exchange can be playful, ominous, tender, satirical, or quietly philosophical. The same household object may become a confidant in one poem, a witness in another, and an adversary in a third.
As you browse the community poems, notice the range of relationships poets establish with their chosen subjects. Some writers let an object speak directly; others preserve an observing narrator while giving weather, animals, places, machines, or ideas expressive intentions. A poem may sustain one central presence from beginning to end, or use a brief human gesture as the hinge on which the poem's emotional meaning turns. Tone also changes the effect: exaggeration can create comedy, restraint can produce unease, and intimacy can make an impersonal force feel painfully close.
Reading beyond the first example reveals how much depends on selection and development. A convincing poem does more than attach a human adjective to a thing; it discovers which gestures, desires, silences, and contradictions belong to that particular subject. Compare several poets' approaches to see how literal details support imaginative claims, how voices remain believable, and how endings return the altered subject to the reader. The collection becomes a workshop in possibility: each poem proposes a different answer to the question of how the world might look if it could respond to us.
Reading Guide
Reading these poems closely means watching two realities operate at once. The subject retains its recognizable physical nature, yet it also enters a human emotional or social world. The most rewarding examples keep those levels in productive conversation: a river's movement may suggest impatience because the observed motion supports the feeling, while an abandoned chair may seem lonely because placement, stillness, and context make that loneliness credible. As you read the community poems, look beyond the initial imaginative surprise and ask how thoroughly each poet develops its consequences.
- Track the governing relationship. Notice whether the poet treats the subject as companion, opponent, witness, child, judge, or speaker. That relationship determines the poem's emotional stakes. When comparing poems, ask: what does the human role assigned to the subject reveal about the narrator?
- Examine the verbs. Active verbs often do more persuasive work than strings of human emotions. A moon that eavesdrops creates posture, motive, and tension at once. Which poets choose actions that arise naturally from the subject's visible behavior, and which actions feel merely attached?
- Listen for voice and syntax. When a nonhuman subject speaks, sentence length, diction, confidence, and hesitation create character. Even without direct speech, syntax can make a force seem commanding or shy. Ask whether the voice suits both the subject's physical qualities and the poem's tone.
- Follow the literal details. Strong poems keep returning to texture, motion, color, sound, scale, or function. These details prevent the imaginative premise from becoming vague. What concrete evidence makes the attributed mood or intention believable?
- Watch the degree of development. A brief instance can provide a sharp flash of insight, while a sustained portrayal can build narrative and psychological complexity. Does the poet deepen the initial idea, complicate it, or simply repeat it in new wording?
- Study line breaks and pauses. A break placed before an important action can make the subject appear to decide, resist, or surprise. Silence can also suggest withheld speech. As you compare several poets' approaches, ask where pacing makes the nonhuman presence feel most alive.
- Evaluate the ending's transformation. Effective closure may expose the speaker's projection, reverse the relationship, or leave the subject with an unsettling independence. After the final line, do you see the subject, the speaker, or both differently?
Browse several poems with these questions in mind. Differences in voice, evidence, pacing, and closure will show how one shared imaginative method can produce sharply distinct reading experiences.
Writing Tips
Begin a draft by treating the chosen subject as more than a convenient container for a feeling. Observe it closely enough to discover what kind of character its actual qualities might support. A rusted gate and a new gate may both complain, but they should not complain in the same voice or for the same reason. Because this form is not governed by a fixed line plan, its pressure comes from maintaining an imaginative logic: every image, action, and tonal choice must help the reader accept the subject's human dimension without losing sight of what it literally is.
- Choose material with visible or audible behavior. Wind changes direction, bread rises, a phone interrupts, and dust gathers. Such processes provide an action vocabulary from which character can grow. Abstract subjects can also work, but give them sensory consequences so that grief, time, or luck does not become a collection of unsupported labels.
- Decide what the subject wants. Desire creates movement. Perhaps the road wants escape, the garden seeks attention, or a locked drawer protects a secret. You need not announce that motive, but knowing it will help you select actions and organize the poem toward conflict, discovery, or change.
- Use literal properties as constraints. Let material, shape, purpose, habitat, or scale limit the imagined behavior. A candle might labor, bow, or consume itself because flame and wax support those actions. This discipline makes the conceit feel discovered rather than imposed.
- Control how much humanity you assign. A single suggestive verb may create mystery; a complete speaking personality may support narrative or dramatic monologue. The stronger choice depends on the poem's aim. Do not give the subject a biography, vocabulary, and emotional range merely to prove that the device is present.
- Avoid familiar emotional shortcuts. Smiling suns, angry storms, and dancing flowers can work, but only if developed beyond their expected associations. Seek a precise situation, contradiction, or consequence. What kind of anger does this storm possess, and how does its pressure, timing, or aftermath make that anger particular?
- Shape sound around character. Hard consonants may sharpen a machine's impatience; long vowels may enlarge the sea's lament; clipped syntax may make a clock seem officious. Read the draft aloud and listen for places where the music contradicts the personality unintentionally or becomes so patterned that it sounds mechanical.
- Let lineation create agency. Place an important verb after a pause to make an action feel chosen, or isolate an object when you want its solitude to register. Vary sentence and line length according to movement. Formal display should intensify the subject's presence, not distract from it.
- Complicate the speaker's projection. The narrator may be wrong about what the subject feels, or may recognize a private fear in it. This uncertainty adds depth. A memorable draft often reveals as much about the observer's need to humanize the world as it does about the personified presence.
- Earn the final turn. Avoid closing by explaining the lesson or restating the assigned emotion. Instead, allow one last action, image, refusal, or silence to alter the relationship. The subject might outlast the speaker, cease cooperating with the comparison, or expose a consequence that was latent from the beginning.
During revision, underline every human action or quality, then circle the concrete detail that supports it. Where no support exists, sharpen the physical observation or remove the claim. Next, read aloud for tonal consistency, pacing, and unintended cliché. Finally, ask a reader what kind of presence they encountered before explaining your intention. If their answer is vivid but not identical to your private explanation, the poem may have achieved the productive independence that strong personification needs.
Interesting Facts
- The smallest grammatical choice can alter the relationship. A pronoun, possessive phrase, or direct address may make a landscape feel like a companion rather than scenery. Readers often register this shift emotionally before they consciously identify how it occurred.
- Restraint can be more convincing than abundance. One exact verb may animate a subject more powerfully than several lines of declared feelings. The reader participates by completing the implied character, which can make the effect linger.
- Physical accuracy strengthens imaginative freedom. The more precisely a poet observes how ice fractures, machinery stalls, or leaves turn toward light, the more daring the attributed motive can become. Factual detail gives the invention something solid to push against.
- Humor and menace can arise from the same action. A house watching its occupants might seem protective in one context and threatening in another. Diction, pacing, and the speaker's attitude-not the human action alone-determine the emotional effect.
- Length changes the reader's expectations. In a short poem, a single human gesture can operate as revelation. In a longer poem, readers usually expect the premise to develop through conflict, escalation, contradiction, or a changing relationship rather than remain a repeated decorative effect.
- A speaking subject is not automatically a developed character. Dialogue becomes persuasive when word choice, rhythm, and motive arise from the subject's particular nature. Generic speech can flatten even an inventive premise, while silence may create a stronger personality.
- Comparison reveals the form's true flexibility. As you read the community poems, notice how different writers balance literal observation and emotional projection. Reading several interpretations shows that distinctiveness comes less from choosing an unusual object than from discovering an exact relationship with it.
Popular Themes
Subject matter becomes especially consequential here because each topic determines what kind of human presence the poet can plausibly uncover. The possibilities below are literary pathways, not claims about which themes appear most often. In every case, the strongest choice grows from the subject's own motions, textures, functions, or effects.
- Nature and weather. Storms, seasons, rivers, trees, and celestial bodies already move through cycles larger than an individual life. Giving them intention can dramatize awe, vulnerability, conflict, renewal, or humanity's uneasy wish to interpret forces it cannot control.
- Animals and human kinship. An animal's recognizable behavior can support affection, comedy, estrangement, or moral reflection. The challenge is to preserve its animal specificity rather than turn it into a disguised human with interchangeable traits.
- Household objects. Beds, mirrors, doors, clocks, dishes, and clothing share private routines with their owners. As witnesses or confidants, they can carry memory and reveal domestic tensions without requiring the human speaker to explain everything directly.
- Time, memory, and age. Abstract forces become dramatically active when they pursue, bargain, steal, heal, or refuse. Concrete evidence-changed bodies, fading photographs, repeated anniversaries-keeps the theme from dissolving into generalized reflection.
- Love, absence, and grief. An empty room may wait; a keepsake may guard what its owner cannot release. Such subjects externalize emotion, allowing loss or longing to appear through action and setting rather than direct confession alone.
- Machines and technology. Devices can interrupt, demand, remember, monitor, or fail. Their apparent agency supports humor and unease while opening questions about dependence, attention, labor, and whether tools serve their users or quietly reorganize them.
- Food and appetite. Ingredients, meals, and kitchen processes offer color, transformation, sound, and cultural association. A loaf's pride or a kettle's impatience can create comedy, but food can also embody care, scarcity, heritage, temptation, or communal memory.
- Places and communities. Streets, buildings, towns, and abandoned spaces can welcome, conceal, age, or bear witness. Their accumulated details allow collective experience to emerge through a presence larger than any single speaker.
As you browse the poems in this collection, compare works that approach similar subjects. One poet may make a tree parental, another defiant, and another indifferent. Those differences reveal how observation, tone, and relationship transform familiar material into individual vision.
Editorial Insights
The central artistic tension lies between recognition and resistance. Readers must recognize a human gesture in the chosen subject, yet the subject must retain enough otherness to resist becoming a person in costume. If a river is reduced to an ordinary speaker who merely happens to be called a river, the physical world disappears. If the poem never develops beyond an attractive comparison, its imaginative promise remains unused. Memorable work sustains both realities, allowing current, depth, bank, flood, and reflection to shape whatever longing, anger, or memory the river seems to possess.
Structure feels necessary when the poem's movement follows the developing relationship rather than presenting a sequence of decorative attributions. A subject might first appear passive, acquire apparent intention, challenge the observer, and finally expose something the speaker has avoided knowing. In another poem, one brief gesture may be enough because line breaks, silence, and context concentrate its force. Editors and attentive readers notice whether imagery accumulates purposefully, whether verbs alter the stakes, and whether sound supports the imagined character. Repetition can suggest insistence, ritual, labor, or entrapment, but mechanical repetition merely announces the technique again and again.
Predictability is the most common danger. Familiar pairings such as laughter with sunlight or anger with thunder arrive carrying ready-made meanings, so the poet must discover a sharper circumstance or an unexpected consequence. Forced language creates the opposite problem: the subject is made to perform actions unrelated to its material nature simply because the poet wants a particular message. Over-explanation also weakens the effect by translating every image into a lesson. Readers need enough evidence to follow the imaginative logic, but they also need space to feel its ambiguity. Insufficient development, especially in longer poems, leaves the initial idea unchanged when it should gather pressure, encounter resistance, or turn.
Individuality remains visible through the relationship a poet invents. Two writers may choose the same moon, mirror, or tree while producing entirely different poems because one emphasizes rivalry, another companionship, and another the speaker's mistaken projection. Voice, scale, setting, syntax, and ethical perspective all shape that relationship. Comparing multiple community poems develops judgment more effectively than treating one example as a template. Read beyond the first example and consider where the device becomes indispensable: where removing the subject's apparent agency would collapse the poem's emotional architecture. That necessity, rather than the mere presence of recognizable technique, often separates a competent exercise from a poem readers remember.
Read, Write & Share
Read several community poems before settling on what this form can do. Compare how poets animate similar subjects through different verbs, voices, tones, and endings, and notice where literal detail makes an imaginative leap persuasive. A thoughtful comment might identify the action that changed your view of the subject, the line break that created surprise, or the moment when humor turned toward tenderness or unease.
Then choose something you can observe closely and try your own approach. Let its physical qualities guide its character, revise until the human presence feels necessary, and publish the finished poem on PoetrySoup so other readers can respond and compare.
Collection Statistics
This collection contains 2177 poems, offering ample opportunity to compare how writers develop voice, agency, imagery, and emotional relationship around nonhuman subjects. Some poets may follow familiar conventions closely, while others may adapt or challenge expectations through restraint, humor, extended narrative, unusual speakers, or ambiguous projection. Browse widely rather than treating any single poem as a complete model of the form's possibilities.
Personification Categories
Read wonderful personification poetry on the following sub-topics:
animals, food, 4th grade, funny, life, love, kids, metaphor, nature, onomatopoeia, simile, tree,
and more.
Definition | What is Personification in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.