Raven Ponderings

In word building, writers often choose words that bring certain images and connotations to mind. I thought a neat exercise for Raven and the Writing Desk would be to come up with ten things that the word raven symbolizes for me.

1. The color black.
"She had raven dark hair."

2. Poe's poem, The Raven
"Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore."

3. A feeling of scavenging.
I often see ravens by the highway, picking at dead things by the side of the road.

4. A flock of birds, since they are often see in flocks.


5. Intelligence and cunning
Common ravens have the largest brains of all species of birds. They display a certain ability of problem solving as well as imitation and insight. If one raven finds food, it will call to the others in the flock.


6. An ill omen
Since they feed on the dead, seeing a raven in the sky, to me is an ill omen.

7. A bleak call
Raven's have a melancholy and rather harsh croaking call.

8. That Simpson's Episode where Bart was the Raven and Homer was Poe.


9. A long beak
"He had a nose like the beak of a raven"

10. Black feathers


Now it's your turn! When someone writes about the image of a raven, what do you see? How do you feel?